LETTER FROM REV. DR. PENNINGTON.

MR. EDITOR:—By comparing my dates,
you will see that I am writing leisurely. I
have a reason for so doing.

Somewhere about two years since, a per
son unknown to me, sent me a slip from the
printed columns of a newspaper, of which
the following is a copy:

"Rev. J. W. C. Pennington, D. D., a fugi
tive slave, was recently elected Moderator of
the Third Presbytery of New York. This is
the Presbytery of which that pompous and
windy defender of the lower law, Rev. Dr.
Cox, is a member. That Dr. Pennington, who
has felt in his own person, the miseries and
horrors of slavery, should be a member of
that Presbytery, or any other forming a
constituent part of the Presbyterian Church,
is a fact which we cannot explain without
him to be either ignorant of the
position of that church in respect to slavery,
or lacking in self respect and sympathy for
them in bonds."—

The editor does not say whether he is a
Quaker, a Methodist, an Episcopalina, a
Baptist, or a Congregrationalist, or whether
he belongs to no church—nor does he in
form his readers by what authority he un
dertakes to the reasons of my con
nexion with the Presbyterian Church—that
fact, however, my connexion with the Pres
byterian Church, he attempts to explain by
three suppositions, either one of which, if
proven, would be enough to place any man
in an unenviable position. But, really, I
cannot but demur to the editor's logic. To
dispose of a question of such grave import
ance, relating to a man's right of conscience
and private judgment, by three sweeping
suppositions, without a single argument, is a
specimen of logic I have not met with in any
book on that science I have ever read, or in
the volume of common sense logic, which is
the best of all.

I am reminded of a story that Old Uncle
Taff, my master workman at the blacksmith
ing business, used to tell among hundreds of
others, when I was young and working un
der him. He told of a man named Wise
Peter, in one of the lower counties of Mary
land, who was so called because he could
give reason for any fact or event that came
under his notice, so that the slaves in their
quarterings at night, and in their Sunday
and holiday discussions, would always ap
peal to Uncle Peter, who generally succeed
ed in settling a matter, because, like modern
judges, he always gave his opinion, with reas
sons sustained by strong talk. one day
some of the slave children found a curious
species of bat; it flies with hairless wings
while its body resembles a mouse. One of
those creatures had flown with such force
against an out building as to kill and deform
itself considerably. Well, it was brough
into the yard on a crooked stick, and Uncle
Peter was consulted to know what it was.—
Well, it so happened that Wise Peter, tho' a
knowing kind of a man, had not studied
natural history, and he got stuck. As the
creature lay on the ground, he walked
around it, turning it over now and again
with his cane. Finally, he stooped down,
and with a very sage-like nearer glance, said,
"Well, it is either a ground mole or a flying
squirrel." Such as the termination of
Wise Peter's inquest upon the dead bat.

But, to be serious, the , notwith
standing the import of its name, and altho'
it may have acquainted itself with many
things, seems not to have learned one ,
namely, that colored men have as strong
jealousy of their rights of private judgment
and conscience as white men have, and as

high a sense of propriety. The editor mends
his pen, and he flourishes and flourishes, at
tempting to explain a fact by three suppo
sitions, but no argument. What is this
My If the
had a quarrel with the Presbyterian Church
as a body, for her short comings, or with any
individual in its bosom, for words spoken,
and acts performed, and should have ex
pressed it accordingly, I could still respect
the motive. But to single me out as an of
fender, and purposely link my name with
that of an odious individual white man—
falsely, too—and then tell me virtually, that
in no constituent part of the Presbyterian
Church shall my fugitive heel find a resting
place, is equivalent to telling me that I shall
not be a Presbyterian! This, for one
against another, is going it with a ven
genance for liberty of private judgment and
conscience. Has the read the his
tory of the Pilgrims and others who have
suffered for their right of private judgment?
If my neighbor's private judgment leads him
to rest within the pale of some other com
munion than that of the Presbyterian
Church, or without the pale of all churches
—well, but let him remember that I have a
private judgment as well as he has, and that
I recognize no Lord of my conscience but
God only. Slave born, though I be, I am ful
ly awake to the value of the right of private
judgment. I never awoke to a real sense of
the curse of slavery, until I felt the iron in
my conscience—slavery invading my right
of conscience—then I resolved to do or die.
The right of conscience I hold to be the
foundation of all others. Any man, or body
of men, who attempts to invade that sacred
right, I must regard as the most dangerous
of all men to me. Any man, or body of
men, who will, by an act, word, insinuation,
or saying, bring into jeopardy, contempt,
disrepute, or ridicule this sacred right of
mine, on pretence of fidelity to our cause, I
look upon as being as hostile to the interest of
my race, as the man who binds chains upon our
limbs, on pretence that he can take better
care of us in a condition of slavery, than we
can take of ourselves in a state of freedom.
What is the difference?

Col. Frisby Tilghman, of Washington, Md.,
for twenty years, robbed me of the right to
use my limbs for myself; and more than
twenty years after, I overthrew, and de
nounced with manly scorn, the proud, ras
cally, and oppressive pretensions of the
Maryland , the Pennsylvania inquis
itorial —the of the Nor
thern Desert, waylays me and demands me
passport—calls in question my right of pro
gress to complete emancipation. But I have
yet to learn by what authority the
set up this censorship over my private
judgment—and also what reason it has to
suppose that I will stupidly and meanly sur
render my inner manhood to its domineer
ing dictation. If the suppose that
I have not common sense and self-respect, to
cling to my own rights as a man, I can assure
it that is has one black covered book to read.
My inner manhood recoils at the thought
of being made, by one white man, the occasion
of a fling at another. I despise, in my soul,
the thought of being a rest for the rifle of
sharp shooters. In an honest war, let every
man load, steady his own muzzle, and pull
his own trigger. If I wish to be loaded, and

fired into an enemy's ranks, I will do it my
self. I speak thus, because I see the animus
of all this kind of attack upon colored men,
by professed friends of the rights of the
race. We become obnoxious to some of our
professed friends, because we do not gee and
haw, and come into and out of the traces at
their bidding. I have yet to learn that a
mere profession of abolitionism gives any
white man a right to take me by the coat
button and lead me whithersoever he will.—
I know not who was the editor of the ,
at the time the paragraph appeared in
its columns, nor do I care to know. Who
ever he may be, he shared his animus, and
besides, he lost a part of his thunder by a
mistake in a matter of fact—as a minister, I
have never been a member of any Presby
tery with Dr. Cox.

These are my views, freely stated, and I
intend to adhere to them. I wielded a pen
in defence of my own race, before the Penn
sylvania was known. I am its se
nior; I shall, therefore, leave the
to its suppositions, and for myself, and
to do battle for my race, as heretofore.

J. W. C. PENNINGTON.