49 va arjl|

youth, who ever detained the most lively sense g
toward his benefactor.
 Tousaint was now a happy man, considering his cond
as a slave,- the husband of a slave,- a very happy man.
position gave him privileges, and he had a heart to enjoy the
His leisure hours he employed in cultivating a garden, which
was allowed to call his own. In those pleasing engagements
was not without a companion. We went," he said to a traw
ler,-"we went to labor in the fields, my wife and I, hand
hand. Scarcely were we conscious of the- fatigues ol the d
Heaven always blessed our toil. Not only we bwam in abu
dance, but we had the pleasure of giving food to Mblaks w
needed it. On the Sabbath and on festival days we went
church,-my wife, my parents, and myself Returning to o
cottage, after a pleasant meal, we passed the remainder ofr n
day as a family, and we closed it by prayer, in whlih all to
part." Thus can religion convert a de ert into a garden, a4
make a slave's cabin the abode of the purest happiness a
earth.
 Bent as Toussaint was on the improvement of his condition
he yet did not employ the personal property whikh ensued frM
his own and his wife's thritt, in purbhazing his liberty, and el
voting himself and family into the higher c:las of men cf coloi
His reasons for remaining a 4lare are not rccordld. lie ma
have Iflt no attractions tnwardt a ila-i wh..-*' siipriority wi
more nomiual than real. ie m.rA harn re-uil li ti remain in
class whose emancipation he hoped some day tu ai eve.
 The virtues of his character procured Ibr Tou-saint univerq
respect. Ile was esteemed and loved even by the free blacWi
The great planters held him in consideration. His intellectOu
faculties ripened under the effects of his intercourse with fre
and white men. As he grew in mind, and became large 4
hbart, he was more and more puzzl,-i and dl;tre.,,.l with th
institution of slavery ; he could in no way understand how th
hue of the Ekin should put so great a ,s ial and personal di
tance between men whom God, he saw, had made essentiall
the same, and whom he knew to bo useful if not indiLpensal