“If you love learning, you love the DISCIPLINE that goes with it—how shortsighted to refuse correction!” – Proverbs 12:1 Message Bible.
“Wise DISCIPLINE imparts wisdom; spoiled adolescents embarrass their parents.” – Proverbs 29:15 Message Bible.
“No DISCIPLINE is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward, there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.” – Hebrews 12:11 New Living Translation.
It was the custom during those times to separate children born in slavery from their mothers at a very young age. This happened to Fred. At the age of twelve, his master’s wife started teaching him but stopped when his master disapproved. Then Fred began learning to read and write in secret by observing the writings of men with whom he worked and from the White children in the neighborhood.
After being hired by a new master, Fred began teaching other slaves at the plantation. When masters of the other slaves found out, they hit them with clubs and stones, and the teaching was discontinued. Later, he was sent to work for numerous masters, some of whom used to punish him severely. He rebelled and made numerous attempts to escape. On September 3, 1838, he escaped successfully by boarding a train and reached New York. There he married and adopted the second name, Douglass.
Soon, Frederick Douglass began attending abolitionist meetings and started giving eloquent speeches. He traveled to Ireland and Great Britain where he delivered lectures in churches and chapels. His powerful oratory drew masses, and the facilities were often “crowded to suffocation.” Douglass is best known for his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. He wrote the book so eloquently that some skeptics doubted whether it was the work of a Black man.
Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to enslavers’ arguments that enslaved people lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been enslaved. The impossible is possible with DISCIPLINE and COMMITMENT!
