Those dear souls who came to my Sabbath-school came not because it was popular or reputable to do so, for they came with a liability of having forty stripes laid on their naked backs.
Douglass describes the immense courage of enslaved people who risked severe punishment to attend his secret Sabbath-school.
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The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.
It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.
The anti-slavery platform had performed its work, and my voice was no longer needed.
But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.