When Isabella had obtained the freedom of her son, she remained in
Kingston, where she had been drawn by the judicial process, about a
year, during which time she became a member of the Methodist Church
there: and when she went to New York, she took a letter missive from
that church to the Methodist Church in John street.
Afterwards, she withdrew her connection with that church, and joined
Zion's Church in Church street, composed entirely of colored people.
With the latter church she remained until she went to reside with Mr.
Pierson, after which, she was gradually drawn into the 'kingdom' set up
by the prophet Matthias, in the name of God the Father; for he said the
spirit of God the Father dwelt in him.
While Isabella was in New York, her sister Sophia came from Newburg to
reside in the former place. Isabel had been favored with occasional
interviews with this sister, although at one time she lost sight of her
for the space of seventeen years-almost the entire period of her being
at Mr. Dumont's-and when she appeared before her again, handsomely
dressed, she did not recognize her, till informed who she was. Sophia
informed her that her brother Michael-a brother she had never seen-was
in the city; and when she introduced him to Isabella, he informed her
that their sister Nancy had been living in the city, and had deceased a
few months before. He described her features, her dress, her manner,
and said she had for some time been a member in Zion's Church, naming
the class she belonged to. Isabella almost instantly recognized her as
a sister in the church, with whom she had knelt at the altar, and with
whom she had exchanged the speaking pressure of the hand, in
recognition of their spiritual sisterhood; little thinking, at the
time, that they were also children of the same earthly parents-even
Bomefree and Mau-mau Bett. As inquiries and answers rapidly passed, and
the conviction deepened that this was their sister, the very sister
they had heard so much of, but had never seen, (for she was the
self-same sister that had been locked in the great old fashioned
sleigh-box, when she was taken away, never to behold her mother's face
again this side the spirit-land, and Michael, the narrator, was the
brother who had shared her fate,) Isabella thought, 'D-h! here she was;
we met; and was I not, at the time, struck with the peculiar feeling of
her hand-the bony hardness so just like mine? and yet I could not know
she was my sister; and now I see she looked so like my mother.' And
Isabella wept, and not alone; Sophia wept, and the strong man,
Michael, mingled his tears with theirs. 'Oh Lord,' inquired Isabella,
'what is this slavery, that it can do such dreadful things? what evil
can it not do?' Well may she ask, for surely the evils it can and does
do, daily and hourly, can never be summed up, till we can see them as
they are recorded by him who writes no errors, and reckons without
mistake. This account, which now varies so widely in the estimate of
different minds, will be viewed alike by all.
Think you, dear reader, when that day comes, the most 'rapid
abolitionist' will say-'Behold, I saw all this while on the earth?'
Will he not rather say, 'Oh, who has conceived the breadth and depth of
this moral malaria, this putrescent plague-spot?' Perhaps the pioneers
in the slave's cause will be as much surprised as any to find that with
all their looking, there remained so much unseen.