"They were taught that life, even earthly life, is a sacred and precious gift, for which they were to show themselves grateful by keeping it pure and noble and by filling it with useful work. They were taught that duty to God consists not in mere acquiescence, but in active obedience. They were taught that there are earthly duties which no human being can lay down; that on the relation of husband and wife, of parent and child, all other human relations are founded. In short, Shaler recognized men in his slaves. He attributed to them the natural rights of men, and the responsibilities of civilized and Christian men." "And his neighbors unreasonably took umbrage! Mind, I am no upholder of slavery. I am merely speaking of what is, not of what ought to be. A slaveholder, meaning to remain one, can yield nothing in principle, let him be as indulgent as he will in practice. What becomes of his title in the slave-family, if the slave-father has one that he is religiously bound to maintain and the rest of the world to respect? The master is the owner no longer. The property has died a natural death." So slavery dies before Christianity without formal sentence. "But," the Doctor began, in a different tone, passing lightly from a train of argument which might have led him where he had not meant to go, "I should never have taken Shaler to be the lowly-minded man you represent him. I cannot imagine his people addressing him with the familiarity that even Harvey permits; still less can I think of him as treating them with the good-natured roughness of your neighbor Westlake." "I have never seen him followed about his place by a crowd of begging children, nor throwing down coppers or sugar-plums to be scrambled and squabbled for." "Nor tweaking their ears, I suppose," broke in the Doctor, laughing, "nor pulling their hair to make them squeal and rub their heads, and grin gratefully under the flattering pain of master's condescension. I have witnessed these little urbanities. I have not met with a case of the hailing with sugar-plums; but I have known Westlake pelt his people with some pretty heavy oaths, which were as acceptable, to judge by the bobbings and duckings and mowings with which they were received. He is very fond of his people, he tells me, and especially of a distinguished old crone who was his nurse, and who is to be gratified with a majestic funeral. She was impartially graced with his emphatic compliments, and did her utmost to make an adequate return in 'nods and becks and wreathèd smiles.' So I suppose it was understood that he was expressing himself in the accepted terms of patrician endearment. Probably Shaler's affection for his wards was not so demonstrative?" "There was in his manner to them a considerate kindness,--not familiar, yet intimate; in theirs to him an affectionate reverence. He was well fitted to be the chief of a primitive people."