University of Virginia Library

Howard University, Washington, D. C., April 15, 1872.

Miss Catherine Hill:

Dear Niece: I received yours a few days ago, and was glad to learn that you were all well and anxious to see me return home next Christmas, which I hope to be able to do. I was more than gratified to know that the letter which you sent me was written by your own dear little hand. I did not read very many lines before I was lead to weep to hear you say that you, your mother and your aunt had professed religion, and had joined the church at the old “Quaker Meeting House.” Your beautiful letter carried me back to the old Meeting House. Ah! I imagine that many of the brethren who were accustomed to meet there have fallen asleep and have been long since gathered to their fathers. I am glad to know that the children are seeking their Saviour, and are thus preparing themselves to occupy the positions in the church which their parents must soon vacate.

There is another very striking passage in your epistle, in which you say that the Lord has wonderfully blessed me in taking me from home and placing me in an institution of learning where I may be educated. I would to the Lord that there was a school in your neighborhood, so that instead of learning to read and write in the Sabbath school you could learn more about our blessed Redeemer. You asked me if it is wrong to spend your time this way on the Sabbath. It is a question hard to be answered by myself; but if you were in Washington I suppose I would think it wrong, for here we have both Sabbath and every day schools. But situated as you are, I think it no harm, provided it does not lead to anything more; for it is not so much what one does, but the motive which prompts the act. You also said you wish you had such privileges as I enjoy, that you might study and do more good for the poor children in your neighborhood in the way of teaching them. I sympathize with you much, and were I able you should not pant for learning any longer, but should come even

here and drink from the same well of knowledge out of which I draw daily. But I can continue to pray for you. I was accustamed to pray that the Lord would convert your soul, and your mother's and Aunt Lucy Jane's, and you have all been converted. In a like manner will He again hear my prayer, and provide a manner by which you may be educated, if He so wills it. You well know how I have worked to enjoy the advantages of education, but on account of being near sighted (and it was supposed I could not study) I was rejected even by Christian teachers, and particularly by one Christian institution; and when all had forsaken me the Lord took me up from a state of degradation and ignorance and placed me even here through the great Reform Church of America. But first Dr. Turner, who died with one hand upon the lever which helps to move the great educational machinery of this country—and particularly among our race—and the other setting forth truths of the Bible in their purity, opened the door of his institution for me, and I entered there, and would have gone to school there, but I found it much to my advantage to come to Howard University. In conclusion allow me to say, that I first put my trust in man because he would talk very pleasantly to me, pat me on the back, and say in an indirect manner, “Depart, and be ye educated; a young man like you is worthy of an education.” My experience has taught me this lesson, that it is better to trust in God than in the promises of mankind, though some men are really instruments for good in His hands, all along the winding ways of life, to point us to a higher station than that in which we are placed, even by circumstances.

When I was about giving up all hopes of getting an education I visited President Grant, and after talking to him a while I pulled out a copy of a little poem which I composed, which I presented to him on bidding him good bye. He gave me a warm shake of that heroic hand which so materially aided in emancipating four millions of slaves, crushing the rebellion, and is now so successfully binding the heart of every American to his country's cause, and said, “Never pause until you become educated.” Such words, coming from such a source, to an uncultivated mind, indeed left impressions that time only can efface. But after all I found it was better to trust in God and myself, for there are things which man cannot help us to do, neither can we ask him.

I have written a long letter to you that I might tell you of a Friend to whom you can make all your necessities known; for you will find that there are very dark times in life, and what I have said is true; and when you shall have experienced the truthfulness of it you will exclaim—