but I pointed out to them the woful plight of free negroes in Missouri, told them of the free State of Liberia, of the Colonization Society and of my wish to send them to live among their own people in Africa. I told them that they were now at liberty to do as they pleased, but that I should advise them to learn trades, and if they would do so, at the end of three years I would send them to Liberia. They all accepted my offer, except Mammy, whom you saw at the house. She said that she would not go ‘nowhere for nobody;’ and she has never left my home. Some of my slaves learned the trade of the carpenter and joiner, some that of the shoemaker, some that of the mason, others that of the cooper, and some of them remained here on the farm and I did what I could to teach them to be independent farmers. When the three years of their apprenticeship had passed, I sent them through the Colonization Society to Africa.” As I listened to this wonderful story, so modestly and artlessly told, I felt like taking off my hat to my new acquaintance. This was a kind of abolitionist that I had never before met. For conscience’ sake he freed, educated, and deported his slaves to a free state. It cost him fully sixty thousand dollars. But he cheerfully made the sacrifice that he might satisfy his sense of justice. I knew now why my deacon had been so insistent that I should with him visit Captain Harper. The Captain was a man after his own heart. Both had been born and reared in the midst of slavery, and both had become emancipators of their own slaves. They were practical abolitionists, but both would then have indignantly repudiated a title so opprobrious at that time in their own neighborhood and State.