inaugurated regular and stated meetings. I preached and exhorted on the
plantation and at other places where I could gather the negroes to hear
me; and I felt that I was the means in God's hands of redeeming precious
souls. In these meetings I had helpers from among the most intelligent
of the slaves, and made such progress that at all our meetings we would
have a number of God-fearing whites to pray with us.

During my term of hired service with Mr. Thompson I married a colored
girl and added the responsibilities of a husband to my various cares.

The marriage of slaves was a mere formality among themselves, there
being nothing legal, according to the laws of the southern states, about
the ceremony or marriage contract. The slaves cohabited together in most
instances with the express or implied consent of their masters; and as
the masters did not regard the marriage of their slaves as anything,
wives and husbands were constantly in danger of being separated forever.

But the slaves themselves instituted a ceremony which they considered
morally binding, as far as they were concerned; and the slave-owners
deemed it prudent to gratify their slaves by a recognition, in some
degree, of the marital relations that might exist among them. Therefore
a certain set of rules came into operation, by general consent,
governing the visits of the husband to the wife when owned by different
masters. When the wife of a slave lived not more than five miles from
his master he could visit her once a week; when she lived not more than
ten miles away, he could go to see her once in two weeks; and when she
lived twenty or more miles away he could go to see her only once in two
months.

At the expiration of my term of service I was loth to leave my wife at