to wash the wounds, and the smarting was maddening. This torture was
common among the southern planters. God only knows what I suffered under
it all, and He alone gave me strength to endure it. I could hardly move
after the terrible ordeal was finished, and could scarcely bear my
clothes to touch me at first, so sore was my whole body, and it was
weeks before I was myself again.

* * * * *

PREACHING TO THE SLAVES.

As an offset, probably, to such diabolical cruelties as those which were
practiced upon me in common with nearly all the slaves in the cotton
region of the south, it was the custom in the section of country where I
lived to have the white minister preach to the servants Sunday
afternoon, after the morning service for the whites. The white people
hired the minister by the year to preach for them at their church. Then
he had to preach to each master's slaves in turn. The circuit was made
once a month, but there was service of some kind every Sunday. The
slaves on some places gathered in the yard, at others in the white
folks' school houses, and they all seemed pleased and eager to hear the
word of God. It was a strong evidence of their native intelligence and
discrimination that they could discern the difference between the truths
of the "word" and the professed practice of those truths by their
masters. My Boss took pride in having all his slaves look clean and tidy
at the Sabbath service; but how would he have liked to have the slaves,
with backs lacerated with the lash, appear in those assemblies with
their wounds uncovered? The question can never be answered. The master
and most of his victims have gone where professions of righteousness
will not avail to cover the barbarities practised here.