Up to this time the slave-trade had been looked upon most unfavorably by the people of the South. Among the first sermons I remember to have heard, was one depicting the horrors of this trade. I was by my grandmother's side at Bethany, in Greene county, and, though a child, I remember, as if of yesterday, the description of the manner of capturing the African in his native wilds--how the mother and father were murdered, and the boys and the girls borne away, and how England was abused for the cruel inhumanity of the act. Although unused to the melting mood, the old lady wiped from her eyes a tear, whether in sorrow or sympathy for outraged humanity, or in compliment to the pathos and power of her favorite preacher, I was too young to know or have an opinion. I remember well, however, that she cried, for she pinched me most unmercifully for laughing at her, and at home spanked me for crying. Dear old grandmother! but yesterday I was at your grave, where you have slept fifty-two years, and if I laughed above thy mould at the memory of the many bouts we had more than sixty years ago, and, from the blue bending above, thy spirit looked down in wrath upon the unnatural outrage, be appeased ere I come; for I should fear to meet thee, even in heaven, if out of humor! The roses bloomed above you--sweet emblems of thy purity and rest--and there, close by you, were the pear-trees, planted by your hands, around the roots of which you gathered the rods of my reformation; for I was a truant child. You meant it all for my good, no doubt; but to me it was passing through purgatory then, to merit a future good in time. Ah! how well I remember it--all of it. _Requiescat in pace_. I had almost irreverently said, "Rest, cat, in peace."