About the Book
Excerpt from Olney Hymns, in Three Books: I. On Select Texts of Scripture; II. On Occasional Subjects; III. On the Progress and Changes of the Spiritual Life How our renegade stripling, at an age when'youth and ill health might have softened the heart of the least compassionate of the gentler sex, came to be so much out of favour with his mistress, has not been told by himself, but her cruelty has, and the record will not soon be efi'aced from his pages, though thou sands of wretches like him may have suffered as much, under similar circumstances, whose wrongs and oppressions ceased from the earth with themselves, and were written in no book but that out of which the dead as well as the living shall be judged at the last day. His miseries, however, have been preserved by enduring memorials, - perhaps as examples of the horrible re-action and vengeance on the spot, and in the persons of the perpetrators, which, even in this world, accompany the practice of that unexpiated crime against God and man, in which civilized nations have been engaged for more than three centuries that crime of Christendom, which has robbed Africa of millions of her offspring, peopled the West Indieswhich may never be traced to their real source till the secret counsels of Providence shall be revealed, and the ways of God to man be justified, in the presence of all the lost, and all the saved, of heaven and earth. The sufferings of our unhappy outcast cannot be expressed with equal force by any other words than his own. Lethim, then, speak for himself - not at the time -no, not at the time, for then he would have spoken swords and Spears, and buried his com plaints under the burden of execrations, which he would have ipoured, and often did pour out, in the bitterness of his soul, upon the female scourge under whose lash of scorpions he (the representative of guilty England, that fostered such spoilers of Guinea) was daily writhing. No, let him speak, as he spoke long afterwards, when the grace of God had re claimed and translated him from the bondage of Satan into the kingdom of Christ. Having been left sick by his master, under the care of his mistress, he says I had sometimes not a little difficulty to procure a draught of cold water when burning with a fever. My bed was a mat spread upon a board, and a log of wood my pillow. When my fever left me, my appc tite returned. I would gladly have eaten, but there was no one gave unto me. She lived in plenty her self, but hardly allowed me sufficient to sustain life, except now and then, when in the highest good hu mour, she would send me victuals on her own plate, after she had dined; and this (so greatly was my pride humbled) I received with thanks and eagerness, as the most needy beggar does an alms. Once I was called to receive this bounty from her own hand; but, being exceedingly weak and feeble, I dropped the plate. Those who live in plenty can hardly conceive how this loss touched, me but she had the cruelty to laugh atmy disappointment and though the table was covered with dishes, she refused to give me any more. My distress has been so great as to compel me to go by night and pull up roots in the plantation, (though at the risk of being punished as a thief, ) which I have eaten raw upon the spot, for fear of discovery. The roots I speak of are very wholesome food when boiled, but as unfit to be eaten raw as a potato. The couse quence of this diet - which after the first experiment I always expected and seldom missed - was the same as if I had taken tartar emetic; so that I have often returned as empty as I went yet necessity urged me to the trial several times. I have sometimes been re lieved by strangers, nay, even by the slaves in the chain, who secretly brought me victuals (for they durst not be seen to do it, )from their own slender pittance.
