How can the acts of this Virginia slaveholder be explained? Why did he deal kindly with his slaves? What led him to make such great pecuniary sacrifices in manumitting them? The explanation is probably in part to be found in the benevolent disposition with which God had endowed him; but in addition to this he was a genuine Christian. He was vitally united to Christ. Christ was in him and he had the Spirit of Christ. He was living the life of Christ. He had much of Christ’s love to his fellow men. He never for a moment doubted the manhood of his slaves, and he felt impelled by the spirit within him to treat them as his fellow men. He was a constant reader of the Bible. He had, I think, the best-thumbed New Testament in my entire congregation, and the truths of the gospel were antagonistic to slavery. He evidently very profoundly believed what the great apostle to the Gentiles wrote: “There is neither bond nor free: for we are all one in Christ Jesus.” A few months after I made my home in St. Louis, my good deacon wished me to go with him a few miles out of the city and call upon Captain Harper, one of his close friends. He did not tell me the real reason why he wished me to make the captain a visit, but thereby hangs an interesting tale. On a beautiful autumn day, we drove out to the farmhouse of his friend. We were welcomed with genuine Southern hospitality. After a few moments conversation under the shade-trees in front of the house, Mr. Brotherton said, “I think that you would enjoy a walk over the farm with Captain Harper.” To this I eagerly assented. The farm appeared to be in perfect order; the fences were well built, the fields were thoroughly tilled, and the maturing crops were abundant. It was the best kept farm that it had been my lot to see up to that time in my adopted State. There were several hundred acres of it. Here and there in different directions I saw on the farm neat cottages painted white. I asked the captain what they were. He told me that they were occupied by German and Irish families, the families of the men who worked his farm. “A few years ago,” he said, “I carried on this plantation by slave labor. I had twenty-one slaves. But one day as I was walking across this field, where we now are, the thought came to me for the first time in my life that my slaves had the same right to themselves and to the product of their labor, that I had to myself and the product of my toil. And this conviction was strong and persistent; I could not shake it off. But what could I do with my slaves? The laws of the State were such that if I should give them their freedom they would be worse off than in their bondage. I then thought of the Colonization Society and decided to free my slaves, and, if I could get their consent, to send them to Liberia. I called them all together one day in my dooryard, and told them that I had been convinced that I had no just right to them or to their labor;