associates, and spent his Sundays and evenings in a bar-room. He neglected his business; people lost confidence in him, and step by step he went down, till in five years he stink into a wretched grave. That was the effect of freedom on _him_, and it would be so on all his race.' 'It is clear,' I replied, 'he could not bear freedom, but that does not prove he might not have 'endured' it if he had never been a slave. His overjoy at obtaining liberty, after so long a struggle for it, led to his excesses and his ruin. According to your view, neither the black nor the poor white is competent to take care of himself. The Almighty, therefore, has laid upon _you_ a triple burden; you not only have to provide for yourself and your children, but for two races beneath you, the black and the clay-eating white man. The poor nigger has a hard time, but it seems to me you have a harder one.' 'Well, it's a fact, we do. I often think that if it wasn't for the color and the odor, I'd be glad to exchange places with my man Jim.' The Colonel made this last remark in a half-serious, half-comic way, that excited my risibilities amazingly, but before I could reply, the carriage stopped, and Jim, opening the door, announced: 'We's h'ar, massa, and de prayin' am gwine on.' Had we not been absorbed in conversation, we might have discovered the latter fact some time previous to our arrival at the church-door, for the preacher was shouting at the top of his lungs. He evidently thought the good Lord either a long way off, or very hard of hearing. Not wishing to disturb the congregation at their devotions, we loitered near the doorway until the prayer was over, and in the mean time I glanced around the premises.