re prayer is that they may not
provoke God, by persisting in a reckless course of wickedness, to pour
out his consuming wrath upon them.

I must now return to our history.

My old master had the reputation of being a very humane and Christian
man, but he thought nothing of selling my poor old father, and dear
aged mother, at separate times, to different persons, to be dragged off
never to behold each other again, till summoned to appear before the
great tribunal of heaven. But, oh! what a happy meeting it will be on
that day for those faithful souls. I say a happy meeting, because I
never saw persons more devoted to the service of God than they. But
how will the case stand with those reckless traffickers in human flesh
and blood, who plunged the poisonous dagger of separation into those
loving hearts which God had for so many years closely joined
together--nay, sealed as it were with his own hands for the eternal
courts of heaven? It is not for me to say what will become of those
heartless tyrants. I must leave them in the hands of an all-wise and
just God, who will, in his own good time, and in his own way, avenge
the wrongs of his oppressed people.

My old master also sold a dear brother and a sister, in the same manner
as he did my father and mother. The reason he assigned for disposing
of my parents, as well as of several other aged slaves, was, that "they
were getting old, and would soon become valueless in the market, and
therefore he intended to sell off all the old stock, and buy in a young
lot." A most disgraceful conclusion for a man to come to, who made
such great professions of religion!

This shameful conduct gave me a thorough hatred, not for true
Christianity, but for slave-holding piety.

My old master, then, wishing to make the most of the rest of his
slaves, apprenticed a brother and myself out to learn trades: he to a
blacksmith, and myself to a cabinet-maker. If a slave has a good
trade, he will let or sell for more than a person without one, and many
slave-holders have their slaves taught trades on this account. But
before our time expired, my old master wanted money; so he sold my
brother, and then mortgaged my sister, a dear girl about fourteen years
of age, and myself, then about sixteen, to one of the banks, to get
money to speculate in cotton. This we knew nothing of at the moment;
but time rolled on, the money became due, my master was unable to meet
his payments; so the bank h