A WESLEYAN PREACHER ARRESTED

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 281, 29 June 1860, Page 4

A WESLEYAN PREACHER ARRESTED

'iNNORTH CAROLINA. A Geeensboeough, Guilford co., N.C., correspondent of the New York Herald, gives a lengthy account of the arrest in the ,former place of the Rev. Daniel Worth, a Wesleyan Methodist preacher, a native of North Carolina, but for some time past, up to two years ago, a resident of Indiana, in which State he had been a member of the Legislature. He was arrainged on the 23rd of December, on a charge of selling and circulating books against slavery, and uttering in the pulpit language calculated to make slaves and free negroes discontented. He was taken for examination on the following day.— More than a dozen witnesses sustained the charges against him, and one man testified that he had purchased a copy of Helper's book from Worth. It was also proved that Worth in the pulpit, on Sunday had said that the laws of North Carolina ought not to be obeyed, and that they were made by a set of drunkards, gamblers, and whoremongers." The prisoner, who conducted his own case, acknowledged that he had been engaged in circulating anti-slavery books, and also a work on the " War in Kansas," but did not consider it any harm to do so; that at first he did not intend to admit having circulated the former, but that he wanted to make them, as a lawyer would, bring evidence to substantiate the charges. The counsel for the prosecution rejoiced that this case had arisen in old Guilford, which had been claimed as an abolition country, and denounced Helper and his book, reading extracts from the last. The prisoner, in his own defence, attempted to argue the evil of slavery, and to convince the Court that he was right in preaching against it. He was, however, compelled to confine himself to the point at issue.

He then continued his remarks at considerable length on abolition, until the Court told him that it bad listened long enough to that strain, and desired him to speak as to the charges brought against him. The prisoner then spoke as to his course having been consistent with his calling as a preacher and a man ; that when he heard there was a warrant for his arrest, he had started for this place to surrender himself; that in his preaching and practice he had only been doing what others in the state had long ago been doing unmolested ; that he was apeace man, and a Union man; that he sought not to dissever the Union ; that he didn't endorse all the sentiments contained in Helper's work; that he had formerly been a magistrate in this county; that he had been living in Indiana many years, 'and came back to North Carolina about two years since, to benefit the health of an invalid wife; that that wife had died and he had married again, and had been engaged in preaching in several counties since; he.was not conscious of having violated the laws of'the State,, either in his calling as a preacher or as a circulator of' " Helper's Impending Crisis." The Court ordered him to find bail in 5000 dollars for his appearance at the next t«rm of court, and the same amount to keep the peace until that time.

At last accounts, the required bail had not been found! Worth is about sixty-five years of age. |The punishment for the first offence of the kind for which he has been held to bail, is thirty^nine lashes; for the second, death. ■ This Mr. Worth was a member of the Legislature of this state from Randolph county for several years, from 1825 to 1830, or thereabout.'