Lunsford Lane, The Narrative of Lunsford Lane;

I had never been permitted to learn to read; but I used to attend church, and there I received instruction which I trust was of some benefit to me. In religious matters, I had been indulged in the exercise of my own conscience–a favor not always granted to slaves. To me, God also granted temporal freedom, which man without God’s consent, had stolen away.  On the Sabbath there was one sermon preached expressly for the colored people which it was generally my privilege to hear. I became quite familiar with the texts, “Servants be obedient to your masters”–”He that knoweth his master’s will and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes,” and others of this class: for they formed the basis of most of these public instructions to us. The first commandment was to obey our masters, and the second was to do as much work when they or the overseers were not watching us as when they were. There was one very kind hearted Episcopal minister who was very popular with the colored people. But after he had preached a sermon to us in which he argued from the Bible that it was the will of heaven from all eternity we should be slaves, and our masters be our owners, most of us left him; for like some of the faint hearted disciples in early times we said,–”This is a hard saying, who can bear it?”