Supporting Churches by Slave Jobbing.
The Rev. J. Cable, of Indiana, May 20, 1846, in a letter to the Mercer Luminary, says:—“I have lived eight years in a slave State, (Va.)—received my Theological education at the Union Theological Seminary, near Hampden Sydney College. Those who know anything about slavery, know the worst kind is jobbing slavery—that is, the hiring out of slaves from year to year, while the master is not present to protect them. It is the interest of the one who hires them, to get the worth of his money of them, and the loss is the master’s if they die. What shocked me more than anything else, was the church engaged in this jobbing of slaves. The college church which I attended, and which was attended by all the students of Hampden Sydney College and Union Theological Seminary, held slaves enough to pay their pastor, Mr. Stanton, ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS a year, of which the church members did not pay a cent (so I understood it). The slaves, who had been left to the church by some pious mother in Israel, had increased so as to be a large and still increasing fund. These were hired out on Christmas day of each year, the day in which they celebrate the birth of our blessed Savior, to the highest bidder. These worked hard the whole year to pay the pastor his $1000 a year, and it was left to the caprice of their employers whether they ever heard one sermon for which they toiled hard the whole year to procure. This was the church in which the professors of the seminary and the college often officiated. Since the abolitionists have made so much noise about the connection of the church with slavery, the Rev. Elisha Balenter informed me the church had sold this property and put the money in other stock. There were four churches near the college church, that were in the same situation with this, when I was in that country, that supported the pastor, in whole or in part, in the same way, viz: Cumberland church, John Kirkpatrick, pastor; Briny church, William Plummer, pastor, (since Dr. P. of Richmond;) Buffalo church, Mr. Cochran, pastor; Pisga church, near the peaks of Otter, J. Mitchell, pastor.”