"My sins," she replied. I remarked that this was indeed the cause of all our misery; and I then endeavoured to point her to that blessed fountain opened for sin and uncleanness, where she and all our guilty race might wash and be clean. As I passed along, I saw several young children around the establishment, and when I joined our host in the garden, I told him what had passed, and inquired of him, if the parents of the children we saw had been regularly married. He appeared somewhat confused, and very serious--but at length replied-- "This is one of the worst features of slavery. Two of the parents of those children are married. The woman with whom you were conversing is the mother of four children, and has never been married? Her conscience is not easy." I inquired if such things were of common occurrence among the slave population? He replied--"Yes--and we cannot prevent it." Alas for that state of society which brings along unavoidably such sin in its train! I inquired in relation to the religious instruction of the slaves, and was sorry to learn that it was so very defective. On one plantation where there were seventy slaves, the master was a perfect worldling, and never allowed his slaves to attend public worship or receive any kind of religious instruction. Must there not be something wrong in that state of society which places seventy immortal souls so entirely under the control of one individual that he can shut against them completely the gate of heaven? But this is an unwelcome theme and I pass on.