In this, however, I was not very successful; but I had not been long engaged at it, before I received a communication from my white Baptist friends in Baltimore, through my pastor, Rev.Sam'l Smith, informing me that if I would come to Baltimore, and accept an appointment as missionary to the colored people of that city, they would assist me in raising the balance of the money then due upon myself.
This was indeed an unexpected, and to me an undesired call.

I began to think, how can I leave my wife and seven small children, to go to Baltimore to live, a distance of more than a hundred miles from them.
This, I thought, could not be.

I thought my children would need my watchful care, more now than at any other time.

It is true, they were all slaves, belonging to a rich widow lady.

But she had always given me the entire control of my family.