INTRODUCTION

       Table of Contents

      I WAS born in New Town, Worcester County, Maryland, on the 26th day of September, 1817. My mother's name was Sally Laws Henderson. She was a devout member of the M. E. Church, and died in June, 1828. From her lips I received my first antislavery lesson. Could she have had her way, no slave would ever have been held by any member of her family. My father, John W. Long, was a native of Maryland, and a slaveholder. In the early part of his life he was a sea-captain, with all the generosity of the sailor, but with few of the faults common to him. During the war of 1812 he abandoned the sea, and commenced the mercantile business in New Town. In 1824 he removed to the Ferry on the Somerset side of the Pocomoke River, nearly a mile from New Town. He died in 1834, leaving my two sisters and brother under my protection.

      I was received into the M. E. Church in 1835, by the Rev. John A. Roche, of the Philadelphia Conference, who is an accomplished Christian gentleman and eloquent preacher. I commenced my ministerial career in 1839, and was received into full connection in the Philadelphia Conference in 1842. In 1848 my health failed; and since at time the Conference has permitted me to labor when and where I have pleased, according to the state of my health.

      I am an ardent lover of Methodism, and consider that man its greatest enemy who strives, directly or indirectly, to fasten to it the dead and putrid body of chattel slavery. I trust I am no bigot; for I love those who love our Lord Jesus Christ, of whatever church, race, or color.

      Fifteen months ago it was my expectation to live and die in my native State — in private to bear my testimony to masters against slavery, and in public to labor for the salvation of slaves. I had resolved to bear the reproaches of those who would regard me as an abolitionist, and to endure the slang to which I would necessarily be subjected from fellows of the "baser sort." But I had four boys, and, as a Christian father, I wished to train them to honorable labor; and was desirous that they should regard all mankind as members of one universal family. They were beginning to imbibe the common prejudices of slave society — hatred of work and of slaves. Accordingly, I determined to remove to a free State. A Southern gentleman remarked to me that, if he had sons, and held my views on slavery, he would act precisely as I have acted.

      In October, 1856, I removed to Philadelphia, the "city of brotherly love;" in which, to my astonishment, I found prevailing a vast deal of pro-slavery sentiment. At this discovery all my latent antislavery feeling awoke into activity. A Southern antislavery man can listen with some patience to one who obtains his bread and butter by the institution; but the justification of slavery by a Northern man is almost intolerable. A conviction that I ought to bear my testimony against the system by writing now took possession of my mind. But difficulties loomed up before me. I should lose my friends, and would doubtless have to encounter persecution. Again, save a few scraps and obituary notices, I had never written a line for publication. But, in view of the responsibilities of the great future, the path of duty seemed plain. Accordingly, last Christmas I commenced to write my book, which, justice to myself requires me to state, has been written in a small room with my family around me, subject to the interruptions of visitors, and to all the depressing influences of feeble health, and the discouraging advice of friends. When my manuscript was ready, no publisher in Philadelphia that I approached would undertake its publication. I have but little money to lose; yet I have published it at my own risk. It goes forth on my own responsibility. Its glory or its shame will fall on my own head. No minister or layman in the Philadelphia Conference is accountable for it. If any of either class shall approve it after reading it, I shall be gratified. I most devoutly believe what I have written. I have no misgivings that the principles