C. F. Sturgis

Columbus Franklin Sturgis, 1809-1877, served for a time as Jesse Mercer's associate and also his successor as pastor of the Washington Baptist church. It may be considered that he became pastor upon Jesse Mercer's death in September 1841 and left the pastorate sometime after October 1842.

The first Bible and hymn book for the pulpit were purchased in 1842 at a cost of $9.75.

^ 'Master and mistress, and neighbors, and negroes assemble, and black and white are seen strung along the great table, like the keys of a piano, and, like the aforesaid instrument, the black keys make fully as much noise as the white; all mingle for a while in the utmost harmony and good feeling....' Rev C F Sturgis, 'Duties of Christian Masters to their Slaves' (1849) quoted in Breedon, James O (editor

In 1851 a Baptist publication society in Charleston, SC, offered a prize for the best essay on slavery. C. F. Sturgis was the author of one of three essays published together in 1851. He began his very long essay in this fashion:

"These letters purport to be a correspondence between two brothers

who here appear under the fictitious names of Joseph and William 

Melville. The elder of the brothers (Joseph) is, by supposition, not a 

professor of religion, but a man religiously educated — a politician 

and a member of the legal profession. The younger is supposed 

to be a professed Christian, a conscientious and religious man. 

"How far the things contained in these letters have had a real 

existence, it is, perhaps, not necessary to say. No sensible man 

would think of objecting to ''Aesop's Fables" or the ''Pilgrim's 

Progress" because the one makes beasts, and birds, and fishes, 

talk, or because the other describes characters which, perhaps, 

never had an existence, but in the beautiful conceptions of the 

author. 

"We all feel that the moral remains the same, whether- the 

beasts and birds talked or not, and whether there ever was pre- 

cisely such a personage as " Giant Despair," or " the Interpreter." 

"All that the author asks is, that the same indulgence be ex- 

tended to his humble letters. 

MELVILLE LETTERS; 

OR, THE 

DUTIES OF MASTERS TO THEIR SERVANTS,"