Little does the present generation know of the times we went through in the years immediately before the war, when I used to travel over the States of the North, assisting in the lecturing and agitation against slavery. It is a very great gratification to me nowadays to look back and think of all the wonders of that most wonderful and lengthened campaign when William Lloyd Garrison, and all the other "big guns" were thundering away, and the discharge of their mighty artillery shook all the land, even to the Gulf of Mexico! I am not so strong and supple in body now as I was in those glorious, Halcyon days; but I praise and bless the Lord that I was then endowed with health, and strength, and vigorous life to lay on the axe of liberty, and to help bring down that foul and deadly upas tree called "Slavery," that was the curse of the whole land—the public disgrace of the United States. Since then I have contributed many articles to the papers and magazines of the day to help my own people to rise up and start upon their feet; but there is nothing that I ever did that left so much pleasure upon my memory as the campaign wherein I played, sang and lectured against slavery in the South. Well, to be sure, how the surging crowds did come! It was a wonderful time that we had. The excitement was also most exhilarating. But above all, those mighty changes were on the road, that we see around us to-day. The Lord has done great things for us already, and still we can say that there is a good time coming! Upon the whole my life has been a happy one—at least, as happy as could be expected in this shady world of ours, where ever-changing clouds and sunshine chase each other all through our pilgrim journey to our home in heaven. I have tried to make the best of things, and to consign myself to the Lord’s will as nearly as my infirmities will let me. Mercy and goodness have followed me all the days of my life, and I have been most abundantly blessed by the Lord above all that I could either ask or think. My dear reader will no doubt think that I am in a very contemplative frame of mind at the present time, thus looking back and musing upon the active years of my past life. No doubt the greater part of life’s long day has gone by, and the evening and night are coming on. But in my time I have learned to trust in God, to lay hold upon eternal life, to keep hope alive in my heart for all times for myself and all my people, not only my immediate family, but the entire colored race.