With a broad catholicity of spirit that appears, in perspective, incompatible with the narrowness of creeds and ordinances prevalent, even among the educated Christians of that time, the “plantation preachings” held regularly during the summer at various homesteads in those parts of the county near the churches, were attended by the colored population in large numbers, irrespective of the sect to which the officiating minister might belong. It was an established custom in the Village Church that the second Sunday service should be, in summer, at the house of some neighboring planter, and held for the colored people, in particular. That the whites, within a radius of five or six miles, drove over for the afternoon service, did not alter the expressed purpose of the meeting, or the manner of conducting it. Autumn was tardy in approach that year, and so it fell out that notice was given on the second Sunday morning after my arrival at my new abode, of “a plantation preaching to be held, at three o’clock, at the residence of Mr. Richard I. Gaines, to which all are cordially invited.” We had an early dinner in consequence of the service. Over the dessert—the servants having been excused, that they might get ready for the “preaching”—we talked more freely of their ideas and mode of worship, than would have been kind in their presence. Among other anecdotes I related one I had had from Ned Rhodes last summer, when he had, as he reported, been “blackburying” on Sunday afternoon. The cemetery of the colored people was then, as now, situated upon high, rising ground, overlooking the ravine separating Shockoe Hill from the adjacent country. Mr. Rhodes and a friend, in the course of a Sunday afternoon walk, were drawn to the spot by the sight of a great crowd of negroes and a string of mourning coaches. When the two young men were near enough to the concourse to hear what was going on, they were espied by the orator of the day, who instantly soared into what his ilk admired as “dictionary English.” Upon the heap of red clay beside the grave was a tiny coffin. The new-comers agreed, in telling the story, that they had never beheld a smaller, and that the size of the pitiful little casket, wrapped with flowers, by contrast with the number of attendants upon the pompous service, set the stamp of absurdity upon the whole performance before they caught what the man was saying. That this was in keeping with the rest, they speedily perceived. In hortatory tones that thundered to the remotest auditor, he dilated upon the uncertainty of life: