"I no care for my soul at all before then. No man teach me a word about my soul." "Well, now tell me further about what happened to you in America. How came you there?" "My massa take me there in a ship, and he stop there one month; and then I hear the good minister." "And what did that minister say?" "He said I was a great sinner." "Did he speak to you in particular?" "Yes, I think so; for there was a great many to hear him, but he tell them all about me." "What did he say?" "He say all about the things that were in my heart." "Who taught you to read?" "God teach me to read." "What do you mean by saying so?" "God gave me desire to read, and that make reading easy. Massa give me Bible, and one sailor show me the letter; and so I learn to read by myself with God's good help." "And what do you read in the Bible?" "Oh, I read all about Jesus Christ, and How He loved sinners; and wicked men killed him, and He died and came again from the grave, and all this for poor negro. And it sometime make me cry to think that Christ love me so." Not many days after the first interview with my African disciple, I went from home on horseback, with the design of visiting and conversing with him again at his master's house, which was situated in a part of the parish near four miles distant from my own. The road which I took lay over a lofty down or hill, which commands a prospect of scenery seldom equalled for beauty and magnificence. It gave birth to silent, but instructive contemplation. As I pursued the meditations which this magnificent and varied scenery excited in my mind, I approached the edge of a tremendous perpendicular cliff with which the hill terminates; I dismounted from my horse and tied him. I cast my eye downwards a little to the left, towards a small cove, the shore of which consists of fine hard sand. It is surrounded by fragments of rock, chalk cliffs, and steep banks of broken earth. Shut out from human intercourse and dwellings, it seems formed for retirement and contemplation. On one of these rocks I unexpectedly observed a man sitting with a book, which he was reading. The place was near two hundred yards perpendicularly below me: but I soon discovered by his dress, and by the color of his features, contrasted with the white rocks beside him, that it was no other than my African disciple, with, as I doubted not, a Bible in his hand. I rejoiced at this unlooked-for opportunity of meeting him in so solitary and interesting a situation. I descended a steep bank, winding by a kind of rude staircase, formed by fishermen and shepherds' boys, in the side of the cliff down to the shore. He was intent on his book, and did not perceive me till I approached very near to him. "William, is that you?" "Ah, massa, I very glad to see you. How came massa into this place? I thought nobody here but only God and me."