Through prayer and introspection, Frederick Douglass tried to make sense of his enslavement on a Maryland plantation. This piece, calling out to God for deliverance, was taken from his riveting autobiography published seven years after his escape to freedom.

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Let us remember

That we are in the Holy presence of God

You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale and I sadly before the bloody whip!

You are freedom’s swift-winged angels that fly round the world; I am confined in bands of iron! O that I were free! O, that I were on one of your gallant decks, and under your protecting wing!

Alas! Betwixt me and you, the turbid waters roll. Go on, go on. O that I could also go! Could I but swim! If I could fly! O, why was I born a man, of whom to make a brute! The glad ship is gone; she hides in the dim distance. I am left in the hottest hell of unending slavery. O

God, save me! God deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any God?

Why am I a slave? I will run away. I will not stand it. Get caught, or get clear. I’ll try it. I had as well die with ague as the fever. I have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die standing. Only think of it; one hundred miles straight north, and

I am free! Yes! God helping me, I will.

Saint John Baptist de La Salle – Pray for Us.

Live Jesus in our Hearts. – Forever!