FREDERICK DOUGLASS                    13

     It stirs the heart with pride to recall these last days of
active service of Frederick Douglass. As great as he was by
right of achievement and in the estimation of all the country,
there was something more than charming in the purely hu-
man side of his nature.  With all his right to be proud of him-
self, he yet was delightfully simple and free from all affecta-
tion.  It was possible at all times to feel at home and near to
him.  He was really lovable as companion or friend. Though
accustomed to deal with large questions and associate with
high personages, he had a most happy way of entering into the
common-place interests of even the humblest person.  It was
no unusual thing to see him at a railroad station seek out some
colored man, woman or child and greet them as if they had
been old acquaintances.  He always had a sympathetic inter-
est in those whom  we are accustomed to call common colored
people.   In greeting them he would tell them who he was,
admonish them  to educate their children and to be hopeful.
Many a little colored boy and girl on this route through Miss-
ouri will remember how caressingly he greeted them, with his
"God bless  you, my  children."  No  one can adequately tell
how the great heart of this gifted man went out in sympathy
 with those of his kind who seemed hopelessly isolated from
all those kindly forces that tend to save men from  the blight
of man's prejudice to man.
                                        S. LAING WILLIAMS.




			

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 23, Num. 1

Frederick Douglass at Springfield, Mo.

Laing

Volume:  23
Issue Number:  01
Page Number:  07
Date:  07/1906