“No, sir; dey have been comfort to my soul many times,
since me hear goot minister preach in America, as me tell you last week at your house.”
“Well, now I hope, William, that since God has been so graciously pleased to open your eyes, and affect your mind with such a great sense of his goodness in giving his Son to die for your sake; I hope that you do your endeavour to keep his commandments: I hope you strive to behave well to your master and mistress, and fellow-servants. He that is a Christian inwardly will be a Christian outwardly; he that truly and savingly believes in Christ, will show his faith by his works, as the apostle says. Is it not so, William?”
“Yes, sir; me want to do so. Me want to be faithful. Me sorry to tink how bat servant me was before de goot tings of Jesus Christ come to my heart. Me wish to do well to my massa, when he see me and when he not see; for me know God always see me. Me know dat if me sin against mine own massa, me sin against God, and God be very angry with me. Beside, how can me love Christ if me do not what Christ tell me? Me love my fellow-servants, dough, as I tell you before, dey do not much love me; and I pray God to bless dem. And when dey say bat tings, and try to make me angry, den me tink, if Jesus Christ were in poor Negro’s place, he would not revile and answer again with bat words and temper, but he say little and pray much. And so den me say noting at all, but pray to God to forgive dem.”
The more I conversed with this African convert, the more satisfactory were the evidences of his mind being spiritually enlightened, and his heart effectually wrought upon by the grace of God.
The circumstances of the place in which we met together contributed much to the interesting effect which the conversation produced on my mind. The little cove or bay was beautiful in the extreme. The air was calm and serene. The sun shone, but we were sheltered from its rays by the cliffs. One of these was stupendously lofty and large. It was white as snow; its summit hung directly over our heads. The sea-fowls were flying around it. Its whiteness was occasionally chequered with dark green masses of samphire, which grew there. On the other side, and behind us, was a more gradual declivity of many-coloured earths, interspersed with green patches of grass and bushes, and little streams of water trickling down the bank, and mingling with the sea at the bottom. At our feet the waves were advancing over shelves of rocks covered with a great variety of sea-weeds, which swam in little fragments, and displayed much beauty and elegance of form as they were successively thrown upon the sand.
Ships of war and commerce were seen at different distances. Fishermen were plying their trade in boats nearer the shore. The noise of the flowing tide, combined with the voices of the sea-gulls over our heads, and now and then a distant gun fired from the ships as they passed along, added much to the peculiar sensations to which the scene gave birth. Occasionally the striking of oars upon the waves, accompanied by the boatmen’s song, met the ear. The sheep aloft upon the down sometimes mingled their bleatings with the other sounds. Thus all nature seemed to unite in impressing an attentive observer’s heart with affecting thoughts.
I remained for a considerable time in conversation with
the Negro, finding that his master was gone from home for the day, and had given him liberty for some hours. I spoke to him on the nature, duty, and privilege of Christian baptism; pointed out to him, from a prayer-book which I had with me, the clear and scriptural principles of our own church upon that head; and found that he was very desirous of conforming to them. He appeared to me to be well qualified for receiving that sacramental pledge of his Redeemer’s love; and I rejoiced in the prospect of beholding him no longer a “stranger and foreigner, but a fellow-citizen with the saints, and of the household of God.”
“God,” said I to him, “has promised to ‘sprinkle many nations,’ not only with the waters of baptism, but also with the dews of his heavenly grace. He says he will not only ‘pour water on him that is thirsty,’ but, ‘I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.’”