"Can you read?"
"No, sah; we don't read in dis country. It's agin the law."
"Can you tell what is on that sign-post?"
"Yes, sah; it says forty miles to Liberty."
"Well, now," said my friend, "why don't you follow that road and get your liberty? It says there, only 'forty miles to Liberty.' Now, why don't you take that road and go there?"
The old man's countenance changed, and he said: "That ar's a sham, young massa, but if it pointed up thar," and he raised his trembling hand toward heaven, "to the liberty wherewith Christ makes us free, that ar wouldn't be no sham."
The old slave, with all his ignorance, had even then experienced a liberty in his own soul that these young men, with all their boasted education, at that time knew nothing of.
The Most Important Thing
A certain John Bacon, once a famous sculptor, left an inscription to be placed on his tomb in Westminster Abbey:
"What I was as an artist seemed of some importance to me while I lived; but what I was as a believer in Jesus Christ is the only thing of importance to me now."