The American Prejudice Against Color | Page 5

act of a certain lady who, having heard during this selfsame
visit that we were to be married on the morrow, actually had her sleigh
drawn up to the door, and would have driven off to the Elder's to "_stop
the wedding_" had not her husband remonstrated. It is true, this lady

opposed the marriage, not on the ground of an immorality, but of its
inexpediency considering the existent state of American sentiment; but
then it is curious to think of what amazing powers she must have
imagined herself possessed.
Public opposition however, soon began to assume a more decided form.
Neighbours far and near, began to visit the house of Elder King, and to
adopt such remonstrance and expostulation as, in their view the state of
the case demanded. Some thought our marriage would be dreadful, a
most inconceivably horrid outrage. Some declared it would be vulgar,
and had rather see every child of theirs dead and buried, than take the
course which, they were shocked to find, Miss King seemed bent to do.
Some sillier than all the rest, avowed that should the marriage be
permitted to take place, it would be a sin against Almighty God; and it
may be, they thought it would call down thunder-bolts from the
chamber of heaven's wrath, to smite us from the earth.
"There is no peace," saith my God, "to the wicked."--And surely,
clearer exemplifications of this saying of Holy Writ were never had,
than in the brain-teasings, mind-torturings and heart-rackings of these
precious people, out of deference to our welfare. May they be
mercifully remembered and gloriously rewarded.
It is proper to introduce to the reader at this point, our cherished
friends,--Mr. and Mrs. Porter,--and to say at once, that words are not
expressive enough to describe the gratitude we owe them, nor in what
remembrance we hold them in the deepest depths of our hearts. They
stood by us throughout that season of intended bloody persecution,
turning neither to the right nor the left, nor counting their own interests
or lives as aught in comparison to the friendship they bore us, or to
their love of the principles of truth, justice and humanity. Amid the
raging billows, they stood as a rock to which to cling.
We had known these friends for months, nay, for years. They had also
been students in Mc. Grawville, but had subsequently married, and at
the time of my December visit to Fulton were teachers of a School in
Phillipsville,--where, it may be proper here to say, was located the
depôt of the Fulton trains of cars.

Not only belonging to that class of persons, (rare in America, even
among those who claim to be Abolitionists and Christians), persons
who do not profess to believe merely, but really do believe in the
doctrine of the "unity, equality, and brotherhood of the human race;"
and who are willing to accord to others the exercise of rights which
they claim for themselves; but, having also great purity of heart and
purpose, Mr. and Mrs. Porter did not, as they could not, sympathise
with those whose ideas of marriage, as evinced in their conversation
respecting Miss King and myself, never ascended beyond the region of
the material into that of the high, the holy and the spiritual. Of all the
families of Fulton and Phillipsville, this was the only one which
publicly spoke approval of our course. So that, therefore it will be
expected, that while those true hearts were friendly to us, they were
equally with ourselves targets at which our enemies might shoot.
I have introduced Mr. and Mrs. Porter at this point, because, at this
point, their services to us commenced. But for these faithful friends,
Miss King would not have known whither to have fled when she found
as she did, her own home becoming any other than a desirable
habitation, owing to the growing opposition and bitter revilings of her
step-mother, and the impertinent intermeddlings of others.
Thus far the opposition which Miss King had experienced, though
disagreeable, had not become too much for the "utmost limit of human
patience." Soon, however, a crisis occurred, in the arrival in Fulton, of
the Rev. John B. King. This gentleman's visit was unexpected, and it is
due to him to say, that he did not come on any errand connected with
this subject; for until he arrived in Fulton, he did not know of the
correspondence which had existed between his sister and myself.
Though unexpected, his visit as already intimated, was fraught with
results, which in their immediate influence, were extremely sad and
woeful.
Mr. King was a Reform preacher, and had even come from Washington,
District of Columbia, where he had been residing for the last two years,
to collect money to build