"Generally speaking, they (the slaves,) appear to us to be without God, and without hope in the world, a NATION OF HEATHEN in our very midst. We cannot cry out against the Papists for withholding the Scriptures from the common people, and keeping them in ignorance of the way of life, for we WITHHOLD the Bible from our servants, and keep them in ignorance of it, while we will not use the means to have it read and explained to them. The cry of our perishing servants comes up to us from the sultry plains as they bend at their toil; it comes up from their humble cottages when they return at evening to rest their weary limbs; it comes up to us from the midst of their ignorance, and superstition, and adultery, and lewdness. We have manifested no emotions of horror at abandoning the souls of our servants to the adversary, the roaring lion that walketh about seeking whom he may devour."
Again: what said the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, in a report on the state of the colored population, in respect of religious instruction?
"Who would credit it, that in these years of revivals and benevolent effort, in this Christian Republic, there are over TWO MILLIONS of human beings in the condition of HEATHEN, and in some respects in a worse condition. From long continued and close observation, we believe that their moral and religious condition is such, that they may justly be considered the HEATHEN of this Christian country, and will bear comparison with heathen in any country of the world. The negroes are destitute of the gospel, and EVER WILL BE UNDER THE PRESENT STATE OF THINGS. In the vast field extending from an entire State beyond the Potomac, to the Sabine River, and from the Atlantic to the Ohio, there are to the best of our knowledge, not TWELVE men exclusively devoted to the religious instruction of the negroes. In the present state of feeling in the South, a ministry of their own color could neither be obtained NOR TOLERATED."
Again: what says a writer in a recent number of the Charleston, South Carolina, Observer?
"Let us establish missionaries among our negroes, who, in view of religious knowledge, are as debasingly ignorant as any one on the coast of Africa; for I hazard the assertion, that throughout the bounds of our Synod, there are at least one hundred thousand slaves, speaking the same language as ourselves, who never HEARD of the plan of salvation by a Redeemer."
A writer in the Western Luminary, a respectable religious paper in Lexington, Kentucky, says,
"I proclaim it abroad to the Christian world, that heathenism is as real in the slave States as it is in the South Sea Islands, and that our negroes are as justly objects of attention to the American and other Boards of Foreign Missions, as the Indians of the Western wilds. What is it constitutes heathenism? Is it to be destitute of a knowledge of God; of his holy word; never to have heard scarcely a sentence of it read through life; to know little or nothing of the history, character, instruction and mission of Jesus Christ; to be almost totally devoid of moral knowledge and feeling, of sentiments of probity, truth and chastity? If this constitutes heathenism, then are there thousands, millions, of heathen in our beloved land. There is one topic to which I will allude, which will serve to establish the heathenism of this population. I allude to the universal licentiousness which prevails. It may be said emphatically, that chastity is no virtue among them; that its violation neither injures female character in their own estimation, or that of their master or mistress. No instruction is ever given; no censure pronounced. I speak not of the world; I speak of Christian families generally."
Again: I give the words of the son of a Kentucky slaveholder, who became an abolitionist at Lane Seminary, and has since induced his father to emancipate his slaves. Hear James A. Thome.
"Licentiousness. I shall not speak of the far South, whose sons are fast melting away under the UNBLUSHING PROFLIGACY which prevails. I allude to the slaveholding West. It is well known that the slave lodgings, I refer now to village slaves, are exposed to the entrance of strangers every hour of the night, and that the SLEEPING APARTMENTS OF BOTH SEXES ARE COMMON.