out of the village; and among others, my only sister was hired out to a
_professed_ gentleman living in Bath. She had become the mother of two or
three children, and was considered a good servant.

One pleasant Sabbath morning, as I was passing the house where she lived,
on my way to the Presbyterian church, where I was sent to ring the bell as
usual, I heard the most piteous cries and earnest pleadings issuing from
the dwelling. To my horror and the astonishment of those with me, my poor
sister made her appearance, weeping bitterly, and followed by her inhuman
master, who was polluting the air of that clear Sabbath morning, with the
most horrid imprecations and threatenings, and at the same time
flourishing a large raw-hide. Very soon his bottled wrath burst forth, and
the blows, aimed with all his strength, descended upon the unprotected
head, shoulders and back of the helpless woman, until she was literally
cut to pieces. She writhed in his powerful grasp, while shriek after
shriek died away in heart-rending moanings; and yet the inhuman demon
continued to beat her, though her pleading cries had ceased, until
obliged to desist from the exhaustion of his own strength.

What a spectacle was that, for the sight of a brother? The God of heaven
only knows the conflict of feeling I then endured; He alone witnessed the
tumult of my heart, at this outrage of manhood and kindred affection. God
knows that my will was good enough to have wrung his neck; or to have
drained from his heartless system its last drop of blood! And yet I was
obliged to turn a deaf ear to her cries for assistance, which to this day
ring in my ears. Strong and athletic as I was, no hand of mine could be
raised in her defence, but at the peril of both our lives;--nor could her
husband, had he been a witness of the scene, be allowed any thing more
than unresisting submission to any cruelty, any indignity which the master
saw fit to inflict on _his wife_, but the other's _slave_.