At a shoe-shop, I met John Blevins, a noble appearing John Brown sort of man whose sentence was forty years in the Virginia Penitentiary in Richmond. His crime was, aiding slaves to their God-given rights. He had served sixteen years when Richmond was taken. The Union soldiers opened the prison door, and John Blevins, with four hundred other prisoners, walked out free men. His intelligence speaks of better days. He is sixty years of age, and hard treatment had added ten years to his appearance. During the first few years of his prison life he could tell when a master had lost his slaves, as they would then place him in the dungeon, where he was kept for weeks at a time, to compel him to give the names of other abolitionists, but they never succeeded. He was at this time teaching a colored school. Out of school-hours, he worked in the shoe-shop, and was trying to make enough to purchase for himself a suit of clothes, when he designed returning to his home in Philadelphia. He had just heard from a family that he assisted to their liberty, some of whom had become quite wealthy, and were trying to find him. He had written to them and was expecting to receive assistance. Whenever he went out on the streets he was annoyed by half-grown boys hooting after him, "Old John Brown, nigger thief." At the time he was arrested, they took all of his money, amounting to five hundred and fifty seven dollars. I visited a Baptist Sabbath-school where three thousand members were enrolled. Over one thousand five hundred were present. They were addressed by Professor Johnson, who introduced and invited me to address the school. They very cautiously discussed the coming holidays, as they had never held one there on their own account. They decided to observe Thanksgiving, Christmas, and celebrate the Proclamation of Freedom on New Year's day. Their minister advised his people to be very careful in word and deed, so as not to give the least occasion for misconstruing their motives. Some of the white people said it ought not to be allowed. They feared an "uprising," but our soldiers said they should have the privilege.