DOUGLASS WAS FORMIDABLE

DOUGLASS WAS FORMIDABLE Frederick Douglass was a formidable writer. I note this fact mentally, parenthetically, while reading “Continuation of Our European Tour,” in his (1893) LIFE ABOUT TIMES. It is his final autobiography of three. He is riding in a ship down the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean traveling to Egypt. I quote him from there: “Here the Khedive has one of his many palaces and here and there are a few moderately comfortable dwellings with two or three hotels and a railroad station. How and by what means the people in this place live is a mystery. For miles around there is no sign of grain or grass or vegetation of any kind. Here we caught first sight of the living locomotive of the East, that marvelous embodiment of strength , docility and obedience , of patient endurance of hunger and thirst—the camel. I have large sympathy with all burden-bearers, whether they be men or beasts, and having read of the gentle submission of the camel to hardships and abuse, of how he will kneel to receive his heavy burden and groan to have it made lighter, I was glad right here in the edge of Egypt to have a visible illustration of these qualities of the animal. I saw him kneel and saw the heavy loads of sand put on his back; I saw him try to rise under its weight and heard his sad groan. I had at that moment much the same feeling as when I first saw a gang of slaves chained together and shipped to a foreign market. “A long line of camels attended by three or four Arabs came slowly moving over the desert. This spectacle, more than the language or customs of the people, gave me a vivid impression of Eastern life ; as picture of it as it was in the days Abraham and Moses. In this wide waste , under this cloudless sky, star-lighted by night and by a fierce blazing sun by day, where even the wind seems voiceless , it was natural for men to look up to the sky and stars and contemplate the universe and infinity above and around them; the signs and wonders in the heavens above and in the earth beneath. In such loneliness, silence, expansiveness , imagination is unchained and man has naturally a deeper sense of the Infinite Presence than is to be felt in the noise and bustle of the towns and men-crowded cities. Religious ideas have come to us from the wilderness , from mountain tops, from dens and caves , and from silent spaces from which come the mirage and other shadowy illusions which create rivers, lakes, and forests where there are none. The song of the angels could be better heard by the shepherds of the plains of Bethlehem than by the jostling crowds in the busy streets of Jerusalem . John the Baptist could preach better in the wilderness than in the busy marts of men. Jesus said his best word to the world when on the Mount of Olives. Moses learned more of the laws of God when in the mountains than when down among the people. The Hebrew prophets frequented dens and caves and desert places . John saw his wonderful vision in the Isle of Patmos with naught in sight but sea and sky. It was in a lonely place that Jacob wrestled with the angel. The transfiguration was on a mountain . No wonder that Moses wandering in the vast and silent desert, after killing an Egyptian and brooding over the oppressed condition of his people , should hear the voice of Jehovah saying, ‘I have seen the affliction of my people .’ Paul was not in Damascus , but on his lonely way thither, when he heard a voice from heaven . The heart beats louder and the soul hears quicker in silence and solitude . It was from the vastness and silence of the desert that Mahomet learned his religion , and once he thought he had discovered man’s true relation to the Infinite, he proclaimed himself a prophet and began to preach with that sort of authority and power which never failed to make converts .” P. 1009-1010, DOUGLASS (1994)