Emphasis Preaching Journal

Like Israel in captivity, African-Americans felt crushed, a people crying out in a strange land. Abolitionist Wendell Phillips felt their pain, and was sometimes astonished by the degree to which their masters had cowed them. On one occasion he spent a night in a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. A slave brought up his breakfast, and Phillips began to speak to the young African of his abolitionist ideals. It became clear that his words were making no impression, so he told the slave he could go. Said the servant, "You must excuse me.