shall
ever feel that God heard and answered our prayer. Had we not been
sustained by a kind, and I sometimes think special, providence, we
could never have overcome the mountainous difficulties which I am now
about to describe.

After this we rose and stood for a few moments in breathless
silence,--we were afraid that some one might have been about the
cottage listening and watching our movements. So I took my wife by the
hand, stepped softly to the door, raised the latch, drew it open, and
peeped out. Though there were trees all around the house, yet the
foliage scarcely moved; in fact, everything appeared to be as still as
death. I then whispered to my wife, "Come, my dear, let us make a
desperate leap for liberty!" But poor thing, she shrank back, in a
state of trepidation. I turned and asked what was the matter; she made
no reply, but burst into violent sobs, and threw her head upon my
breast. This appeared to touch my very heart, it caused me to enter
into her feelings more fully than ever. We both saw the many
mountainous difficulties that rose one after the other before our view,
and knew far too well what our sad fate would have been, were we caught
and forced back into our slavish den. Therefore on my wife's fully
realizing the solemn fact that we had to take our lives, as it were, in
our hands, and contest every inch of the thousand miles of slave
territory over which we had to pass, it made her heart almost sink
within her, and, had I known them at that time, I would have repeated
the following encouraging lines, which may not be out of place here--

"The hill, though high, I covet to ascend,
The DIFFICULTY WILL NOT ME OFFEND;
For I perceive the way to life lies here:
Come, pluck up heart, let's neither faint nor fear;
Better, though difficult, the right way to go,--
Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe."

However, the sobbing was soon over, and after a few moments of silent
prayer she recovered her self-possession, and said, "Come, William, it
is getting late, so now let us venture upon our perilous journey."

We then opened the door, and stepped as softly out as "moonlight upon
the water." I locked the door with my own key, which I now have before
me, and tiptoed across the yard into the street. I say tiptoed,
because we were like persons near a tottering avalanche, afraid to
move, or even breathe freely, for fear the sleeping tyrants should be
aroused, and come down