gned,

"J.K."

Passing through Philadelphia, I went to New York, and in a short time
found employ on Long Island, near the city. At this time, the state of
things was extremely critical in New York. It was just two years after the
general emancipation in that state. In the city it was a daily occurrence
for slaveholders from the southern states to catch their slaves, and by
certificate from Recorder Riker take them back. I often felt serious
apprehensions of danger, and yet I felt also that I must begin the world
somewhere.

I was earning respectable wages, and by means of evening schools and
private tuition, was making encouraging progress in my studies.

Up to this time, it had never occurred to me that I was a slave in another
and a more serious sense. All my serious impressions of mind had been with
reference to the slavery from which I had escaped. Slavery had been my
theme of thought day and night.

In the spring of 1829, I found my mind unusually perplexed about the state
of the slave. I was enjoying rare privileges in attending a Sabbath
school; the great value of Christian knowledge began to be impressed upon
my mind to an extent I had not been conscious of before. I began to
contrast my condition with that of ten brothers and sisters I had left in
slavery, and the condition of children I saw sitting around me on the
Sabbath, with their pious teachers, with that of 700,000, now 800,440
slave children, who had no means of Christian instruction.

The theme was more powerful than any my mind had ever encountered before.
It entered into the deep chambers of my soul, and stirred the most
agitating emotions I had ever felt. The question was, what can I do for
that vast body of suffering brotherhood I have left behind. To add to the
weight and magnitude of the theme, I learnt for the first time, how many
slaves there were. The question completely staggered my mind; and finding
myself more and more borne down with it, until I was in an agony; I
thought I would make it a subject of prayer to God, although prayer had
not been my habit, having never attempted it but once.

I not only prayed, but also fasted. It was while engaged thus, that my
attention was seriously drawn to the fact that I was a lost sinner, and a
slave to Satan; and soon I saw that I must make another escape from
another tyrant. I did not by any means forget my fellow-bondmen, of whom I
had been sorrowing so deeply, and travailing in spirit so