The slaveholders of St.Michael's, like slaveholders elsewhere, would always prefer to see the slaves engaged in degrading sports, rather than to see them acting like moral and accountable beings.
Had any one asked a religious white man, in St.Michael's, twenty years ago, the names of three men in that town, whose lives were most after the pattern of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, the first three would have been as follows: GARRISON WEST, _Class Leader_.
WRIGHT FAIRBANKS, _Class Leader_.
THOMAS AULD, _Class Leader_.
And yet, these were men who ferociously rushed in upon my Sabbath school, at St.Michael's, armed with mob-like missiles, and I must say, I thought him a Christian, until he took part in bloody by the lash.
This same Garrison West was my class leader, and I must say, I thought him a Christian, until he took part in breaking up my school.

He led me no more after that.

The plea for this outrage was then, as it is now and at all times--the danger to good order.

If the slaves learnt to read, they would learn something else, and something worse.

The peace of slavery would be disturbed; slave rule would be endangered.