The smiles of my master could not remove the deep sorrow that
dwelt in my young bosom. We were both victims of the same
overshadowing evil--she as mistress, I as slave. I will not censure
her too harshly. . . ."
After Douglass learned how to write with tolerable ease, he began to
copy from the Bible and the Methodist hymn books at night when he was
supposed to be asleep. He always regarded this religious experience as
the most important part of his education; it had the effect, not only
of enlarging his mind, but also of restraining his impatience, and
softening a disposition that was growing hard and bitter with brooding
over the disadvantages suffered by himself and his race. He greatly
needed something that would help him to look beyond his bondage and
encourage him to hope for ultimate freedom.
While he was undergoing this, to him, novel religious experience, and
while he was gradually being adjusted to the situation in which he
found himself, there came one of those dreaded changes in the fortunes
of slavemasters that made the status of the slave painfully uncertain.
His real master, Captain Anthony, died, and this event, complicated
with some family quarrel, resulted in Douglass being recalled from
Baltimore to the plantation.
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