mystery of the world beyond this vale of tears, for God does preserve all that He has planted on this earth.

No subject can surely be a more delightful study than the history of a slave girl, and the many things that are linked to this life that man may search and research in the ages to come, and I do not think there ever can be found any that should fill the mind as this book.

This is a perfect representation of things as I can remember them, and to think how wonderful are these most beneficent streams of God's providence to all those of our race that have prayed that their loving children might feel the warm streams of an education flowing through every child. Tens of thousands of miles, North, South, West and East, God has thrown His mantle of love all around us, and it is that which should make us love and fear Him, who is able to destroy both soul and body; for His searching eye rests on all of the negro race, to see what use they are going to make of their time and talent, and I hope that nature will teach them that all of our talent belongs to the great God who gave us our being.

Nature awakens in our being a feeling that we must lay at His feet that we may get the blessed approval, for we are so changeable, but God is unchanging. He is omnipotent, and all else is transition. Yet God rules the oceans, the mountains, the valleys, and all that walks the broad earth.

Well, now I shall tell you something more of my working in the City of Brooklyn. I lived with the Bailey family the first year, and when they went away in the summer, as all of the rich used to do, I stayed in the house for the summer and they went across the ocean and were away for some time. The next year I did not like to stay in the house alone, so Mrs. Bailey got me a place with a nice friend of hers, and when she came home, thought that she was going to have me to come back to live with her but I stayed with her friend as there were but three in the family and the work was not hard, and it gave me more time to study, and Mrs. Stafford's son, Willie, was so glad to have me as his pupil that I had not any trouble to get my lessons ready for him. He went to school every day and he could not get through his head how it was that I could not go to school every day as he did. His mother told him how it was and his eyes would fill with tears and he would ask his mother and father to let him stay at home on Sundays to read the Bible to me while I should get the dinner ready, and they would let him stay, for he wanted to see me going to the House of God on Sundays as they did and was willing to have anything to eat that I might have the opportunity of attending the church and Sunday-school. His mother would let me go to the Sunday-school on every Sunday, for they were good people and were of the kind that delighted in their help and they were members of the Church of The Messiah, and they were a very happy family. They did not think that anything was too good for my enjoyment and that is the reason that I stayed with them and did not go back to the lady as she wanted me to do. I could not tell which seemed to love me most, and then her son was so willing to teach me, as Miss Abbie Bailey had, so I made up my mind that as I had more time there for study I would remain, and I had some of the best days of my life when I began to learn so fast, and he would bring me before his mother and father that they might hear me recite my lessons and see how well I was doing under him as my teacher. They felt the more glad to see how much he was interested in teaching me. Later on in years I was taken sick with the smallpox and was carried away to the hospital. He was taken sick while I was away and his mother said that he would call for me about the last one on this earth, and she tried to find me, but she did not know where I was for some time after his death, and then she felt so bad to think that he was gone and did not see me, for he always loved to be with me that he might hear me sing, as I was always on the wings of song if I were at my work; and that is the way that I have been all of my life.

When I got well of the smallpox, as I said, I went back to the place where I was living when I took the malady, and there I tried to work, but was very feeble for a long time and under the doctor's care all of the time and spending more than I could make, for some of the doctors charged me two dollars a visit, and that will use up a poor person's earnings very soon.

But all of this time I kept in mind the idea that I should save every cent that I could that I might send myself to school some day. That day did come when it seemed as dark as any night I had ever seen, when I should go away to boarding school and spend that little and should not have enough to finish; but I went, taking the Lord as the guide of my life, and the way began to grow bright before me and I could see all the clouds rolling away and the brightness shining forth. I went to Washington, D. C., and entered the Wayland Seminary, under the leadership of Professor G. M. P. King, of Bangor, Maine, with his other teachers and professors under him; all of whom are a noble band of teachers. And the way the Lord did help me in my studies is a blessing to the dear ones that I had under me for the eleven years that I was in the school work, and the way they progressed.

I said that I attended the Wayland Seminary for three years, of eight months, making it in all of my stay there twenty-four months, which may seem long to some, but it seems short to me, though I am very glad that I had that much time there for it was a fountain of blessing to my soul.

I left Washington, D. C., in the year of 1878 and came to Brooklyn and went to work again to earn money to go off to school, and when I did go it was another school in the Blue Ridge, Alleghany Mountains, where the very air of heaven seemed to fan the whole hill sides, and there never was a more lovely place on this earth for one to learn a lesson, for we could see the key to all lessons where nature had designed for a grand school of learning. At this place was to be found one of the best schools of learning that has been built by man. And I think of the hundreds and thousands of teachers and preachers and lawyers and doctors that these two schools have turned out in the different parts of this country, and many of them are in other parts of the world.

And all of this has been done through the churches, and God be praised for those that have given of their means.

At Harper's Ferry I spent four years and they were years of hard labor, but they were just as sweet as they could well be, for the Lord went with me and I found favor with all of the teachers. When I had spent the first eight months there I learned to have the greatest love for my beloved teachers, and when the time came for me to leave the teachers I thought that my poor heart would break. Though I was coming to my own people in Brooklyn, I felt that I was leaving my best friends on the earth and so did all of the students.

Well, now the Summer had passed and gone and the Fall came when God permitted all of the loving ones to come together once more to take up the cares of studies again. So the time of the winter season was always a blessing to all, and some found it the happiest time of their lives, for they found Jesus precious to their souls and could study so much better than they could before.

CHAPTER IV

There were sometimes as many as sixty or seventy brought to the knowledge of the Truth, and sometimes we had to go out of the class-room into the prayer-room, for the Lord was among us in the Spirit's power.

When in 1886 I went out for good, that I might be of some use to my own people I started in the strength of the