American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States by Ebenezer Davies
page 199 of 282 (70%)
page 199 of 282 (70%)
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1,000 to 4,000 dollars, or from 200_l._ to 800_l._ "My own," he added,
"is 2,000 dollars." We were now not far from the New York University. "You must go and see that," said he. I went, but saw nothing particular except the library, empty lecture-rooms, and chapel,--no professors. My friendly guide pointed to a portrait of Lord Lyndhurst, told me with evident pride that he was a Yankee, and marvelled at my ignorance of the fact. From time to time I had given him hints that I was afraid of being too late for dinner at my lodgings; and when the sight-seeing was at last ended, he very coolly and complacently said, "Now, if you really think you are too late for dinner at your place, I shall be under the _necessity_ of asking you to go and take a plate with me." Those were the _ipsissima verba_. I could scarcely keep my gravity; but I replied, "Thank you, sir; I want to go to the centre of the city, and I can easily get a dinner at any eating-house." He both nodded and expressed an entire concurrence, and seemed to think it an _admirable_ arrangement. In parting, he pressed me to preach for him on the following Thursday, but I declined. The next day I was told, on unquestionable authority, that two or three years ago one of the elders of this gentleman's church, meeting a man from South America whom he took to be a mixture of Spaniard and Indian, requested his company to church. The stranger assented, and sat with him in his pew. He liked the service, became interested, and went again and again. At last it was whispered that he was a "Nigger,"--_i.e._ had a slight mixture of African blood in him. The next week a meeting of the Session was held, at which it was unanimously resolved that the intruder's entrance into the body of the church must be prohibited. Two men were stationed at the door for that purpose. The stranger came. He was stopped, and told that he could not be allowed to enter the body of the church, there |
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