d is liable to
casualties; not unlike a bark serenely leaving its home harbor to enter
unfrequented waters, the crew exhilarated by fresh and invigorating
breezes, charmed by a genial sky, it moves on "like a thing of beauty"
with the hope of "joy forever." The chart and log of many predecessors
may unheeded lie at hand, but the glorious present, cloudless and
fascinating, rich in expectation, it sails on, fortunate if it escapes
the rocks and shoals that ever lie in wait. It is unreasonable to expect
a proper conception, and the happiest performance of life's duties at
such a period, especially from those with easy and favorable
environments, or who have been heedless of parental restraint, for even
at an advanced stage in life, there have been many to exclaim with a
poet:

"Ne'er tell me of evening serenely adorning
The close of a life richly mellowed by time,
Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of morning
Her smiles and her tears are worth evening's best light."

Twenty-one years of age found me the possessor of a trade, an
attainment, and a capital invaluable for a poor young man beginning the
race of life. For whether seen smutted by the soot of the blacksmith
shop, or whitened by the lime of the plasterer or bricklayer; whether
bending beneath tool box of the carpenter or ensconced on the bench of
the shoemaker, he has a moral strength, a consciousness of acquirement,
giving him a dignity of manhood unpossessed by the menial and those
engaged in unskilled labor. Let it never be forgotten that as high over
in importance as the best interest of the race is to that of the
individual, will be the uplifting influence of assiduously cultivating a
desire to obtain trades. The crying want with us is a middle class. The
chief component of our race today is laborers unskilled. We will not and
cannot compete with other races who have a large and influential class
of artisans and mechanics, and having received higher remuneration for
labor, have paved the way for themselves or offsprings from the mechanic
to the merchant or to the professional. These three factors, linked and
interlinked, an ascending chain will be strong in its relation, as
consistent in construction.

In 1849 Frederick Douglass, Charles Lenox Remond and Julia Griffith, an
English lady prominent in reform circles in England, attended the
National Anti-slavery Convention held in Philadelphia, and presided over
by that apostle of