He spoke of freedom, and had never seen a slave. He pictured the cruelty of the lash used in a Christian land on Christian woman, be she black or white. He spoke of the deeper wrong of tearing the new-born babe from its mother's breast to sell it by the pound--of dragging the woman herself from the father of her child and compelling her to mate with other men--of the fact that such wrongs were not alone the offspring of cruel hearts, nor of brutal owners, but arose from the mere operation of barbarous laws where masters, if left to themselves, would have been most kind. He spoke of such things as these, and yet he never dreamed that his words were but the precursors of deeds that would make mere words seem spiritless and tame.
Young Glazier spoke well. The little magnates of the place,--the older men, after this, talked of him as of one likely to rise, to become a man of note, and their manner grew more respectful towards the young school-master. His occupations and amusements at this period of his existence, though simple in their character, were considerably varied.
Among other entries in his journal about this date, is one that so commends itself by its brevity and comprehensiveness that I quote it _verbatim_.
"Having," he says, "received an invitation upon the twenty-fourth of December, I attended a party at the residence of Jeptha Clark, whose excellent wife received me very kindly; upon Christmas day I visited T. L. Turnbull's school at Fullerville; upon Monday last called at Mr. Austin's school in the Herrick District; Tuesday, dropped down for a moment upon the students at Gouverneur; on Wednesday, returned home; and on Thursday, for the greater part of the day, assisted uncle Joseph in hauling wood from the swamps on the Davis Place."
Thus the time slipped rapidly by and his first term of teaching drew to a close. In the spring of 1859 he again became a member of the Gouverneur Wesleyan Seminary, and in May of that year, made the following characteristic entry in his diary:
"'Order is Heaven's first law.' A time and place for everything, and everything in its time and place, was the rule of conduct I adopted some time ago. In accordance with this determination I have laid out the following routine of occupation for each day. I intend to abide by it during the present term. I will retire at ten o'clock P. M., rise each morning at five o'clock, walk and exercise until six, then return to my room, breakfast and read history until eight, then repeat what the English call a 'constitutional,' viz.: another walk until prayers, devoting the time intervening between prayers and recitation, to Algebra. After recitation, I will study Geometry for three-quarters of an hour, Latin for half an hour, and be ready for recitation again at two o'clock. This will complete my regular course of study, and, by carrying out this routine, I can dine at noon, and also have a considerable amount of time for miscellaneous reading and writing, to say nothing of my Saturdays, upon which I can review the studies of the week."