essons, with the rest;
but, having already learned both to read and to write, I was more of
a teacher than a pupil, even there. When, however, I went back to the
Eastern Shore, and was at the house of Master Thomas, I was neither
allowed to teach, nor to be taught. The whole community--with but
a single exception, among the whites--frowned upon everything like
imparting instruction either to slaves or to free colored persons. That
single exception, a pious young man, named Wilson, asked me, one day, if
I would like to assist him in teaching a little Sabbath school, at the
house of a free colored man in St. Michael's, named James Mitchell. The
idea was to me a delightful one, and I told him I would gladly devote as
much of my Sabbath as I could command, to that most laudable work.
Mr. Wilson soon mustered up a dozen old spelling books, and a few
testaments; and we commenced operations, with some twenty scholars, in
our Sunday school. Here, thought I, is something worth living for; here
is an excellent chance for usefulness; and I shall soon have a company
of young friends, lovers of knowledge, like some of my Baltimore
friends, from whom I now felt parted forever.

Our first Sabbath passed delightfully, and I spent the week after
very joyously. I could not go to Baltimore, but I could make a little
Baltimore here. At our second meeting, I learned that there was some
objection to the existence of the Sabbath school; and, sure enough, we
had scarcely got at work--_good work_, simply teaching a few colored
children how to read the gospel of the Son of God--when in rushed a
mob, headed by Mr. Wright Fairbanks and Mr. Garrison West--two
class-leaders{156} --and Master Thomas; who, armed with sticks and
other missiles, drove us off, and commanded us never to meet for such
a purpose again. One of this pious crew told me, that as for my part, I
wanted to be another Nat Turner; and if I did not look out, I should
get as many balls into me, as Nat did into him. Thus ended the infant
Sabbath school, in the town of St. Michael's. The reader will not be
surprised when I say, that the breaking up of my Sabbath school,
by these class-leaders, and professedly holy men, did not serve to
strengthen my religious convictions. The cloud over my St. Michael's
home grew heavier and blacker than ever.

It was not merely the agency of Master Thomas, in breaking up and
destroying my Sabbath school, that shook my confidence in the power of
south