nothing in the simple and pathetic supplication of the poor black artisan
to check or interfere with the solemn influences of the whole scene. It
was a sort of conventional methodist prayer, and probably quite as
conventional as all the rest was the closing invocation of God's blessing
upon their master, their mistress, and our children; but this fairly
overcame my composure, and I began to cry very bitterly; for these same
individuals, whose implication in the state of things in the midst of
which we are living, seemed to me as legitimate a cause for tears as for
prayers. When the prayer was concluded we all rose, and the coffin being
taken up, proceeded to the people's burial-ground, when London read aloud
portions of the funeral service from the prayer-book--I presume the
American episcopal version of our Church service, for what he read
appeared to be merely a selection from what was perfectly familiar to me;
but whether he himself extracted what he uttered I did not enquire. Indeed
I was too much absorbed in the whole scene, and the many mingled emotions
it excited of awe and pity, and an indescribable sensation of wonder at
finding myself on this slave soil, surrounded by MY slaves, among whom
again I knelt while the words proclaiming to the living and the dead the
everlasting covenant of freedom, 'I am the resurrection and the life,'
sounded over the prostrate throng, and mingled with the heavy flowing of
the vast river sweeping, not far from where we stood, through the darkness
by which we were now encompassed (beyond the immediate circle of our
torch-bearers). There was something painful to me in ----'s standing
while we all knelt on the earth, for though in any church in Philadelphia
he would have stood during the praying of any minister, here I wished he
would have knelt, to have given his slaves some token of his belief
that--at least in the sight of that Master to whom we were addressing our
worship--all men are equal. The service ended with a short address from
London upon the subject of Lazarus, and the confirmation which the story
of his resurrection afforded our hopes. The words were simple and rustic,