The sexton of my church was a colored man. Everybody called him George. One day he said to me, “I am the slave of Marse Brotherton. If he should die, I’se afraid I’ll be sold down souf. Won’t you speak to him about it, and axe him to make me free?” I told him that I would, and I soon found my opportunity to do so. My good deacon then told me the story of George. A few years before George belonged to a man who lived in the county of St. Louis, outside the city. His master died. When settling up his estate the executors put George in the county jail for safe-keeping, intending to sell him to New Orleans slave-traders. Mr. Brotherton was at that time sheriff of the county. Visiting the jail one day, George entreated him to buy him and keep him from being carried down to the New Orleans slave market, which all slaves instinctively dreaded. Mr. Brotherton did not need a servant, but his heart was so touched with pity for him that he bought him. He at once opened an account of which the slave knew nothing, charging George a fair price for keeping, and crediting him with his earnings. In a little while the slave had paid for himself. His manumission papers were then made out. All this was concealed from George. He was a freeman, but did not know it. Mr. Brotherton had set him up in the wood and coal business, was teaching him how to buy and sell and keep his account books, so that he could intelligently care for himself. Having heard this interesting and touching story of my sexton and Christian brother,—for George was a true believer in Christ and an exemplary member of the church,—I asked Mr. Brotherton if in his judgment it would be well for me to tell him that he was a freeman in order to relieve him of anxiety. For a moment that bewitching smile played upon his lips, and then he said, “Yes, you may tell him if you want to.” The next day I met George at the church. It was a great joy to me to tell a man who thought that he was a slave that instead he was a freeman. And my poor pen cannot depict either his happiness or mine, as I told him that simple story of his master’s kindness and benevolence of which he had been the unconscious recipient. He listened at first amazed; then joy beamed from those large, tear-filled, black eyes. He seemed at once to be transformed. In broken utterances he expressed his gratitude to his master and to me. There was no happier soul on earth than he just then. He had come to his duties that day supposing that he was a slave; he did those duties with the new-born sense that he was free. No two states of mind could be in sharper contrast. To him old things in a moment passed away, and all things became new.