Part 4

Oh, what a pleased and happy heart He carried to his home, And how impatiently he longed For the Sabbath-day to come!

He rang the bell, he went to school, The Bible learned to read, And in his youthful heart they sowed The gospel's precious seed.

And now to other heathen lands He's gone, of Christ to tell; And yet his first young mission was To ring the Sabbath bell.

THE FLIGHT OF A SLAVE.

James ---- was born a slave in the State of Maryland. He was so useful as a blacksmith that his value was at least one thousand dollars. He was brought up in total ignorance of letters or of religion, but he always aimed to be trustworthy. He sought to distinguish himself in the finer branches of the business, by invention and finish, making fancy hammers, hatchets, etc. One day his master thought James was watching him improperly, and fell into a panic of rage. "He came down upon me with his cane," said James, "and laid over my shoulders, arms, and legs about a dozen severe blows, so that my flesh was sore for several weeks." He felt the disgrace of the beating so acutely that he determined to abscond, and if possible reach the free soil of Pennsylvania.

One Sunday night, in November, he stole away into the woods, with only half a pound of Indian corn-bread to sustain him on his journey, which would take several days. At three o'clock in the morning his strength began to fail, his scanty supply of food afforded poor nourishment, and the only shelter he could find, without risking travelling by daylight, was a corn-shock but a few hundred yards from the road, and there he passed his first day out. As night came on he pursued his journey; it was cloudy, and he could not see the north star, which was his only guide to freedom. His bread was all eaten, he felt his strength failing, and his mind was filled with melancholy.

In this condition he travelled all the night, and just at the dawn of day he found a few sour apples, and took shelter under the arch of a bridge, where he lay in ambush through the day. Night came on, and he once more proceeded on his wearisome journey. Frequently he was overcome with hunger and fatigue, and sat down and slept a few minutes. At dawn of day he saw a toll-bar, and here he ventured to ask the best way to Philadelphia, and set off in the right direction. His taking the open road was fatal. He was observed by a man, and ordered to give an account of himself. After a parley, James took to his heels; but a hue and cry being raised he was speedily captured. Led to a tavern as a prisoner, he was questioned. He persisted in saying he was a free man, but he had no free papers. Though his story was false, we must remember that he knew not the wickedness of a lie, for he knew nothing of God and our Saviour.

Toward night, being watched only by a boy, he contrived to slip away, and again took to the woods.

Wandering in darkness, the north star being covered with clouds, he was at a loss as to what course to pursue. "At a venture," says he, "I struck northward in search of a road. After several hours of laborious travel, dragging through briers and thorns, I emerged from the woods and found myself wading through marshy ground and over ditches, and came to a road about three o'clock in the morning.

"It so happened I came where there was a fork in the road of three prongs. Which was the right one for me? After a few moments' parley with myself, I took the central prong of the road, and pushed on with all my speed. It had not cleared off, but a fresh wind had sprung up; it was chilly and searching. This, with my wet clothes, made me very uncomfortable."

He saw a farm with a small hovel-like barn; into this he went and buried himself in the straw. Here he lay the whole day; his only danger was from the yelping of a small dog, and the noise of horsemen who passed in search of him. He heard them say they were after a runaway negro, who was a blacksmith, and that a reward of two hundred dollars was offered for his recovery. Night came, and he was again on his way, but all he could do was to keep his legs in motion. There came a heavy frost, and he expected every moment to fall to the ground and perish.

Coming to a corn-field covered with heavy shocks of corn, he gathered an ear and then crept into one of the shocks; he ate as much as he could, expecting to travel on, but fell asleep, and when he awoke the sun was shining. He was obliged to conceal himself as well as he could through the day; he began again to eat the hard corn, and it took all the forenoon to eat his breakfast. Night came, and he sallied out, feeling much better for the corn he had eaten.

He now believed himself near to Pennsylvania, and under this impression, skipped and danced for joy. He says: "A little after the sun rose I came in sight of a toll-gate; for a moment I felt some hesitation, but on arriving at the gate I found it attended by only an elderly woman, whom I afterwards heard was a widow and an excellent Christian. I asked her if I was in Pennsylvania. On being informed that I was, I asked if she knew where I could get employment. She said she did not, but advised me to go to W. W., a Quaker, who lived about three miles from her, and whom I would find to take an interest in me. In about half an hour I stood at the door of W. W. After knocking, the door opened upon a comfortably spread table. Not daring to enter, I said I had been sent to him in search of employment.

"'Well,' said he, 'come in, and take thy breakfast and get warm.'

"These words made me feel, in spite of all my fear and timidity, that I had, in the providence of God, found a friend and a home. He at once gained my confidence, and from that day to this, whenever I discover the least disposition in my heart to disregard poor and wretched persons with whom I meet, I call to mind these words: 'Come in, and take thy breakfast and get warm.'

"I was a starving fugitive, without home or friends, and no claim upon him to whose door I went. Had he turned me away I must have perished. Nay, he took me in, and gave of his food, and shared with me his own garments."

By W. W. the wretched wanderer was fed, clothed, and employed, and not only so, but he was instructed in reading, writing, and much useful knowledge. Here, for the first time, did he learn one word of the truths of religion.

James resided with the benevolent Quaker for six months, when it became necessary for him to depart and go elsewhere. He found employment on Long Island, opposite New York. By the kindness of his friends he was educated, and became a Christian minister and pastor of a colored congregation in connection with the Presbyterian Church.

BENJAMIN BANNEKER.

He was born in Baltimore County, Maryland, in the year 1732. There was not a drop of white man's blood in his veins. His father was born in Africa, and his mother's parents were both natives of Africa. What genius he had must be credited to that race. Benjamin's mother was a remarkable woman. Her name was Morton before marriage, and her nephew, Greenbury Morton, was gifted with a lively and impetuous eloquence which made its mark in his neighborhood. Her husband was a slave when she married him, but she soon purchased his freedom. Together they bought a farm of two hundred acres, which though but ten miles from Jones' Falls, was at that time a wilderness.

When Benjamin was approaching manhood he attended an obscure country school, where he learned reading and writing, and a little arithmetic. Beyond these rudiments he was entirely his own teacher.

Perhaps the first wonder among his neighbors was when, at thirty years of age, he made a clock. It is probable that this was the first clock of which every portion was made in America. He had seen a watch, but never a clock; and it was as purely his own invention as if none had ever been made before.

The clock attracted the attention of the Ellicott family, well educated men, and Quakers. They gave him books and astronomical instruments. From this time astronomy became the great object of Benjamin's life. He remained unmarried, and lived in a cabin on the farm his father left him; he still labored for a living, but his wants were few and simple. He slept much in the day, that he might observe at night the heavenly bodies, whose laws he was studying. The first almanac prepared by Banneker was for the year 1792, when he was fifty-nine years old, and he continued to prepare almanacs till 1802.

He had become known and respected by scientific men, and received tokens of regard from many of them. The Commissioners to run the lines of the District of Columbia invited Banneker to assist them, and treated him in all respects as an equal.

A gentleman writes of Banneker: "When I was a boy I became very much interested in him, as his manners were those of a perfect gentleman--kind, generous, hospitable, humane, dignified, and pleasing--and he abounded in information on all the various subjects of the day." His head was covered with thick white hair, which gave him a dignified and venerable appearance. His dress was uniformly of superfine drab broadcloth, made with straight collar, a long waistcoat, and broad-brimmed hat. In size and personal appearance the statue of Franklin, in the Library of Philadelphia, as seen from the street, is a perfect likeness of him.

REPENTANCE AND AMENDMENT IN A COLORED SCHOOL AT CHRISTIANSBURG.

Two days since, one of my boys had been behaving badly all the afternoon. I think I spoke to him three times during the session, and it seemed to have no effect; so when five o'clock came, I told him I would see him after school. When the other scholars had left, I went and sat down by him, and talked to him a short time. Among other things, I told him that I could not teach a boy who would do so badly, and that I wanted him to kneel down with me, and I would ask the Lord to watch over him after I had to give him up. He was crying very hard, and we knelt down together. When I came to that part of my prayer, he screamed out, "O Lord! don't let Miss Lucy turn me out of school. _Please_, Lord, don't let her! I know I have been a bad boy, but I won't do so any more. Oh! help her to forgive me. O Jesus! I love to come to school! do forgive me for being so wicked!" Of course I forgave him. He has given me no trouble since, and I do not think he will.

--_Am. Freedman._

AN INCIDENT.

During the late rebellion the Confederate army burnt the town of Hampton, Va., as they left it, to prevent the Union troops, who were approaching, taking possession of the houses for winter-quarters. Soon afterwards a gentlemen was riding through the deserted streets and heard the voices of children, but saw no one; all the white inhabitants of the town had fled with the Confederate army, and the colored people were employed around the camp beyond the town. He stopped his horse and listened, then advanced in the direction from which the voices seemed to come, and looked within the four blackened walls and half-burnt wood-work of what had been a lordly mansion. There he saw forty colored children seated on heaps of stones and charred wood, rejoicing and singing "The Christian's Home." They added the last verse.

I have a home above, From sin and sorrow free; A mansion which eternal love Design'd and form'd for me.

My Father's gracious hand Has built this sweet abode, From everlasting it was plann'd, My dwelling-place with God.

My Saviour's precious blood Has made my title sure; He passed through death's dark raging flood To make my rest secure.

The Comforter is come, The Earnest has been given; He leads me onward to the home Reserv'd for me in heaven.

Bright angels guard my way; His ministers of power Encamping round me night and day, Preserve in danger's hour.

Lov'd ones are gone before, Whose pilgrim days are done; I soon shall greet them on that shore, Where partings are unknown.

But more than all I long HIS glories to behold, Whose smile fills all that radiant throng, With ecstasy untold.

That bright, yet tender smile (My sweetest welcome there), Shall cheer me through the little while I tarry for Him here.

Thy love, thou precious Lord, My joy and strength shall be; Till Thou shalt speak the glad'ning word That bids me rise to Thee.

And then through endless days, Where all Thy glories shine, In happier, holier strains I'll praise The grace that made me Thine.

Before the great _I AM_, Around His throne above, The song of Moses and the Lamb, We'll sing with deathless love.

There is no sorrow there! There is no sorrow there! In heaven above where all is love, There is no sorrow there.

SOJOURNER TRUTH.

A man and his wife and their children were brought from Africa to America, and were sold as slaves. One little girl and her mother kept together, but the others were so far separated that they never met again. The little girl's name was Isabella; but when she grew to be a woman and became a Christian, she adopted the name of Sojourner Truth.

She told a lady, "I can remember, when I was a little thing, how my ole mammy would sit out of doors in the evenin', an' look up at the stars an' groan. She'd groan, an' groan, and says I to her:

"'Mammy, what makes you groan so?'

"An' she'd say, 'Matter enough, chile! I'm groaning to think of my poor children; they don't know where I be, and I don't know where they be; they looks up at the stars, an' I looks up at the stars, but I can't tell where they be.'

"'Now,' she said, 'chile, when you be grown up, you may be sold away from your mother an' all your ole friends, an' have great troubles come on ye; an' when you has these troubles come on ye, ye jes go to God, an' He'll help ye.'"

Isabella was sold to a hard master and mistress. She thought she had got into trouble, and she wanted to find God; she prayed that He would make her master and mistress better, and as He did not do so, she concluded they were too bad to be made better, and that she might leave them. So she rose at three o'clock one morning, and travelled till late at night, when she came to a house and went in, "And," she said, "they were Quakers, an' real kind they was to me. They jes took me in, an' did for me as kind as ef I had been one of 'em, an' I stayed an' lived with 'em two or three years. An' now, jes look here; instead o' keeping my promise an' being good, as I told the Lord I would, jest as soon as everything got agoing easy, I forgot all about God, an' I gin up praying."

Sojourner did not long continue in this dark state, but she found the Lord Jesus, and she said, "I shouted and cried, Praise, praise, praise to the Lord; an' I began to feel such a love in my soul as I never felt before,--love to all creatures. An' then all of a sudden it stopped; an' I said, 'There are the white folks, that have abused you, an' beat you, an' abused your people,--think o' them!' An' then there came another rush o' love through my soul, an' I cried out loud, 'Lord, Lord, I can love even the white folks. Jesus loved me! I knowed it, I felt it.'"

When slavery was abolished in the State of New York, Sojourner went back to her old mistress and demanded her son; he had been sent to Alabama. After some trouble and expense her son was brought back to her, though her mistress said to her:

"What a fuss you make about a little nigger! got more of 'em now than you know what to do with."

"Sojourner," said a gentleman, "you seem to be very sure about heaven."

"Well, I be;" she answered triumphantly.

"What makes you so sure there is any heaven?"

"Well, because I got such a hankering arter it in here," she said, giving a thump on her breast with her usual energy.

"Sojourner, did you always go by this name?"

"No, 'deed! My name was Isabella. No, 'deed! but when I left the house of bondage, I left everything behind. I want goin' to keep nothin' of Egypt about me, and so I went to the Lord and asked him to give me a new name. And the Lord gave me Sojourner, because I was to travel up an' down the land, showing the people their sins, an' being a sign unto them. Afterwards I told the Lord I wanted another name, 'cause everybody else had two names; and the Lord gave me _Truth_, cause I was to declare the truth to the people."

Wendell Phillips relates a scene of which he was witness before the abolition of slavery in the United States. It was in a crowded public meeting in Faneuil Hall, Boston, where Frederick Douglas was one of the chief speakers. Douglas had been describing the wrongs of the colored race, and as he proceeded he grew more and more excited, and finally ended by saying that they had no hope of justice from the whites, no possible hope except in their own right arms. It must come to blood; they must fight for themselves, or it would never be done.

Sojourner was sitting, tall and dark, on the very front seat facing the platform; and in the hush of feeling after Frederick sat down, she spoke out in her deep peculiar voice, heard all over the house:

"Frederick, _is God dead_?"

The effect was perfectly electrical, and thrilled through the whole house, changing as by a flash, the whole feeling of the audience. Not another word she said or needed to say, it was enough.

The following is from a letter from a lady who visited Freedman's Village, near Washington, where Sojourner Truth was residing in a little frame building with the American flag over the door.

"We found Sojourner Truth, tall, dark, very homely, but with an expression of determination and good sense by no means common. She apologized for her hoarseness, as she had a meeting last evening. We asked what she had been doing there. 'Fighting the devil,' she said. What particular devil? 'An unfaithful man who has undertaken work for which he is not competent. My people,' she added, 'have fallen very low, and no one need take hold to help raise them up as a matter of business, it must be done from love.' She greatly complained of some one who had an office in relation to the Freedmen, and said he ought to be removed. She was asked why she did not go to the President with her story of the wrongdoing. She said, 'Don't you see the President has a big job on hand? Any little matter Sojourner can do for herself she aint going to bother him with.'"

KATY FERGUSON;

OR, WHAT A POOR COLORED WOMAN MAY DO.

About the year 1774, Katy Ferguson was born. Her mother was a slave, and was taken from her young child and sold to another master.

Uneducated and unaided in her parental duties, this poor Christian mother had been faithful to the extent of her abilities, and left upon the mind of her child indelible religious impressions. Katy, in speaking of this cruel separation, many years afterward, said: "Mr. B. sold my mother, and she was carried away from me; but I remember that before they tore us asunder, she kneeled down, laid her hand upon my head, and gave me to God."

Katy's active mind sought every opportunity of acquiring knowledge. Her mother had taught her much that she herself remembered of the Scriptures. Other persons had taught her the catechism, and her retentive memory seldom lost what had been committed to it.

In her fifteenth year, the Holy Spirit applied to her conscience and heart the truths of Scripture which she had thus received. But when awakened to a perception of her sinfulness, she felt the need of some kind counsellor.

Neither master nor mistress had ever encouraged her to communicate her thoughts on religious subjects. The minister on whose services she attended, Dr. John M. Mason, was a man of such a commanding figure and bearing as to inspire her with fear, rather than confidence. Yet she knew he was a faithful servant of Christ, and that he would care for her soul. She accordingly ventured to call on him. She remarked afterward, "While I was standing at the door, after having rung the bell, my feelings were indescribable. And when the door was opened, and I found myself in the minister's presence, I trembled from head to foot. One harsh word or look would have crushed me." But this faithful minister of Christ at once appreciated her solicitude, and in the gentlest manner inquired, "Have you come here to talk with me about your soul?" This kind reception at once relieved and encouraged her to open her whole heart. The interview was blessed of God to her conversion. And from that day, her course was remarkably direct and upward. She was, in a word, an earnest, self-denying follower of Christ.

At the age of eighteen, by the aid of friends, she was made a free woman; and very soon afterwards married; but her husband and children did not live long.

She lived in a part of the city where there were many very poor families, and many of both colored and white children who had none to care for their bodies or souls. Some of these she took to her own home and taught them to take care of themselves; and for others she found places, where they would be provided for. In this way, during her life, she secured homes for _forty-eight_ of these neglected and suffering ones;--thus anticipating one of the benevolent movements of our time.

But her concern for the spiritual welfare of those around her was especially manifest, and in most appropriate ways. She invited the children to come into her house every Sabbath day, for religious instruction. Feeling her own incompetency to instruct them fully, especially as she was herself unable to read, she obtained the assistance of other Christian people in this work. The well-known Isabella Graham thus aided Katy by occasionally inviting her little flock to come to her own house.

Thus Katy's labor of love went on for some time, unobserved for the most part, even by Christian people, but not unnoticed by God. He smiled upon her, and as He often does in the case of humble efforts like hers, made her little school on the Sabbath the beginning of a great and good work in that city. It was about this time that the house of worship on Murray street, in which Dr. Mason preached, was built. This good man of God had not forgotten Katy, the trembling inquirer. Having heard of her Sabbath assembly of children, he went one day to see what she was doing. As he entered her lowly dwelling, and looked around upon the group of interested, happy-looking faces, he said, with his wonted kindness: "What are you about here, Katy? Keeping school on the Sabbath? We must not leave you to do all this." He immediately conferred with the officers of his church, telling them what he had seen, and advising that others should join Katy in this good work. Soon the lecture-room was opened for the reception and instruction of Katy's charge. This was the beginning of the Sabbath-school in the Murray Street Church; and KATY FERGUSON, the colored woman, who had been a slave, is believed to have thus gathered THE FIRST SABBATH SCHOOL IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK.

But Katy's benevolent heart was not satisfied with this effort for the good of children. She established and maintained, during the last forty years of her life, a weekly prayer-meeting at her house, and during the last five years of her life, when she could not attend the public services of divine worship, she made her own house a Bethel on Sabbath afternoons, by gathering the neglected children of the neighborhood, with such others as did not attend at any place of public worship, and obtaining some suitable person to lead in the services of prayer and praise.