The rudiments of theology were indeed enough to bring condemnation. Frederick Douglass certainly felt so: “Slaves know enough of the rudiments of theology to believe that those go to hell who die slaveholders.” But the simplest concepts were also able to bring utter condemnation from another perspective as well, probably best exemplified by the comments of former slave Mary Younger, a fugitive in Canada at the time: “[I]f those slaveholders were to come here, I would treat them well, just to shame them by showing that I had humanity.”
