Page:Memoir and poems of Phillis Wheatley, a native African and a slave.djvu/16

of some of our States—where this system is in its strong-holds—at the suggestion of good men, for the religious instruction of the slaves. There cannot be the least doubt, as it seems to us, that this measure is not only safe and seasonable, but that the policy of the master, so long as he remains a master, requires it not less than the true happiness of the slave. But especially is it desirable, among the preparations to the great work of general emancipation, which we trust is not only borne in mind constantly by all good men, but is not far distant in reality. In a word, all the exertions now made, by the benevolent friends of the African, appear to us likely to produce or suggest, directly or indirectly, a great amount of good, and to promise the early dawning of that bright day, when, in the moral view of his fellow men, no less than of that Creator who has 'made them all of one blood,' the African shall be as the American, and the black man as the white.