“Yes, massa.”
“What do you think will become of you when you die?”
“I dun know, massa.”
“Did you ever talk with white people on this subject?”
“No, massa.”
Here our conversation was interrupted by the keeper, who told me I must return to my cell. I had no further opportunity to converse with the poor negro prisoner. My thoughts troubled me. I reflected on the destiny of these immortal beings, thus oppressed in body and soul by their tyrant masters. What a fearful weight of responsibility rests somewhere! Who shall give account in the great day for the ignorance of the four millions of slaves, going up to judgment from a land of boasted light and knowledge? This slave was a representative man. Although he knew little about secular matters, he had opportunity to learn even less of religion!
But despite all the efforts to keep the slaves in ignorance, both by legal enactments and tyrannical vigilance, very many of them gained a surprising fund of information. What an accursed system of wrong is that which locks the Bible from the homes and hearts of the poor! May the uttermost overthrow come upon an institution that prohibits the education of any class or color of God’s children!
The next day, before leaving the prison, I asked permission to visit the colored convict once more, but the privilege was not granted. That very day a dark man was hung, and a darker crime registered in the book of Judgment-day accounts, the penalty of which will by-and-by rest upon the head of the guilty perpetrators.