I may say honestly and truthfully that my one aim is and always has been, as far as I may, to hold a torch for the children of a group too long exploited and too frequently disparaged in its struggling for the light. I have not made capital of my race, have paid my own way and have never asked a concession or claimed a gratuity.
O that I once past changing were,
Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither!
Many a spring I shoot up fair,
Offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither:
Nor doth my flower
Want a spring-shower,
My sins and I joining together.
“My greatest desire,” Emily Morgan once wrote, “has always been to make tired people rested and happy.” Generosity was one of her outstanding traits. Wherever she traveled, she purchased gifts for friends, relatives, and acquaintances, choosing articles specifically for certain people and so sharing her pleasure in travel with those at home. Her favorite form of giving, however, was in hospitality.
John Roberts soon settled to a very primitive way of life. The Indians were very poor and he was kept very busy with the two tribes on the Reservation. The Shoshones were Mountain Indians and the Arapahoe were Plains Indians and they were not very friendly towards each other. Fort Washakie was about 20 miles from where the Arapahoes lived. The Shoshones were settled around Fort Washakie.
The very first Act of the Apostles, after Christ was gone out of their sight, was that commemorated this day;—the ordination of Matthias in the room of the traitor Judas. That ordination is related very minutely. Every particular of it is full of instruction; but at present I wish to draw attention to one circumstance more especially; namely, the time when it occurred. It was contrived (if one may say so)
Polycarp and the presbyters who are with him, to the church of God that temporarily resides in Philippi. May mercy and peace be multiplied to you from God Almighty and Jesus Christ our savior.
Physical exercise is good for the health. But not only that: while it stimulates the desire to care for bodily vigour, it stimulates the same desire for vigour of soul. Exercise is extremely useful therefore, assuming it does not distract us from more important activities.
I have now said enough to let you into the reasons why I lately began Daily Service in this Church. I felt that we were very unlike the early Christians, if we went on without it; and that it was my business to give you an opportunity of observing it, else I was keeping a privilege from you.
How do you go about loving your enemies? I think the first thing is this: In order to love your enemies, you must begin by analyzing self. . . . Now, I’m aware of the fact that some people will not like you, not because of something you have done to them, but they just won’t like you. I’m quite aware of that.
It is my contention that Douglass anticipated a liberation theology, a theology that is at the heart of the Christian tradition to eradicate economic, social, and political oppression. Douglass was carving an emancipatory pedagogy out of the stone of oppression that weighed heavily upon him and his people.