not pray against my conscience: that I not only wanted to be free, but
that I wanted to see all the Negroes freed!

I then told them that God was using the Yankees to scourge the
slave-holders just as He had, centuries before, used heathens and
outcasts to chastise His chosen people--the Children of Israel."

(Here it is to be noted that, for a slave boy of between approximately
15 and 17 years of age, remarkable familiarity with the Old Testament
was displayed.)

The Parson then entered into a mild tirade against Yankees, saying:

"The only time the Northern people ever helped the Nigger was when they
freed him. They are not friends of the Negro and many a time, from my
pulpit, have I warned Niggers about going North. No, sir, the colored
man doesn't belong in the North---has no business up there, and you may
tell the world that the Reverend W.B. Allen makes no bones about saying
that! He also says that, if it wasn't for the influence of the white
race in the South, the Negro race would revert to savagery within a
year! Why, if they knew for dead certain that there was not a policeman
or officer of the law in Columbus tonight, the good Lord only knows what
they'd do tonight"!

When the good Parson had delivered himself as quoted, he was asked a
few questions, the answers to which--as shall follow--disclose their
nature.

"The lowest down Whites of slavery days were the average overseers. A
few were gentlemen, one must admit, but the regular run of them were