In this plight I appeared before my professedly Christian master, humbly to invoke the interposition of his power and authority, to protect me from further abuse and violence.
Douglass describes his appeal to his master for protection, underscoring the master's supposed religious piety against the reality of his power.
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It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.
Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.
The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.