His family were settled around him and all enjoying the height of human happiness, industry and content. And if we should attempt to draw the contrast between this happy community, and the continual and fevered excitement which prevails in our cities, — men rushing headlong to perdition, for the sake of grasping another dollar, tugging and delving through the anxieties of the day, retiring at night upon their downy beds, weary and exhausted, not to sleep, but too often to dread the approach of to-morrow, — we shall see that industry and frugality are twin sisters, who point heavenward, while avarice and covetousness completely extinguishes that noble principle which the Creator gave us, as forming one of the chief elements of our free agency.
The covetous and grasping man loves no one but himself. The acquisition of wealth forms the focus of every feeling. The salvation of his own and the souls of his family come not within the sphere of his anxieties. And though he may be aged and his daughters apparently well married to whiskered and moustached expectants, and his sons making large calculations on the old man's death, and perhaps at a Thanksgiving dinner party he may look around with much complacency, being the root of these prolific branches, which will flourish more exuberantly when the root is in the ground. Then his miserly and covetous acquisitions soon go to the four winds, and as it often happens in the alternations of fortune that the third generation are doomed to penury and want.
My uncle Bobbins, once, in conversation about fires in Boston, enquired if they were easily extinguished, to which I replied that the fire department were probably the most efficient in the world. He replied that he had never seen a house on fire, and were.it not for the loss and distress occasioned by it, he should like to see a good large fire. It so happened not long after, that he was on a visit to Boston, when the old glass-house in Essex street was burned. He was at my house at the time. We both went to the fire, and lie seemed perfectly frantic with curiosity, and I had hard work to keep him from breaking through the lanes.
And, as it was, he got pretty well ducked, for venturing too far. In May, 1830, business being rather dull, I had an invitation from a particular friend, to accompany his son, (a young gentleman just preparing for college,) on a short tour through England; he having a ship about ready to sail, first going south for a freight of cotton, and then to Liverpool. I accepted the offer, and we sailed on the loth of May, in the ship Kobin Hood, Capt. John Candler, for City Point, on James river, Virginia. On arriving there, Capt. Candler found his freight ready, and it would probably require ten days to load the ship. I went over to Petersburg to pass a few days, and spent a very pleasant Sabbath in attending the Methodist church for colored people.
It stood in a beautiful grove, a short distance from the town. The day was fine, the birds pouring forth their sweetest notes, and the gentle breeze wafting its fragrance through the fine woods, made it truly enchanting. The preacher was a colored man, and excepting the negro accent and pronunciation, the sermon was as good as I had ever heard in my life. The singing cannot be described, but must be heard to be appreciated. Besides the regular choir, the whole congregation join in. And people may talk of opera, Hungarian, and any other kind of singers, but I had never heard voices so soft and melodious as those of the female slaves at this rural place, and others of which I shall have occasion to refer.
On Monday morning, we took the stage for Richmond, and had, as fellow passengers, a gentleman and his lady, who had just returned from London. On his learning that I was o'oino; to England, kindly offered me a few words of advice, which I was very happy to receive, and as the sequel will show, were of essential benefit to me. The gentleman continued: " My remarks will apply principally to London; before you leave Liverpool, determine on the hotel at which you intend to stop, on your arrival at London; and when the coach reaches its stopping-place, order the cabman to drive you immediately to your pluce of selection, and be careful not to let any one know that you are a stranger.