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PUBLISHED BY THE
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY,
150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK.
FRIENDLY COUNSELS
FOR
FREEDMEN.
We welcome all who have come out of bondage to the privileges of
freemen. Providence has unloosed your fetters. The war has been made
use of by the Almighty to bring about this great change in your
condition. We hope you will remember this; and when you pray, you must
not forget to give him thanks for your freedom.
Your condition is in some respects much better, and in others somewhat
worse, than when you were slaves. Your master, if he was kind, took
good care of you. Now that you are free, you have got to take care of
yourselves. At first this may be a hardship; but by and by you will see
that it is a good thing. In slavery you had little or no care, except
to see that your task was done. Now that you are your own men, you have
got to _think_ and _work_ both.
Thus freedom acts on the mind. It obliges you to seek a livelihood--to
look up work such as you can do, that you may support yourselves and
your families. It sets you to thinking how you can earn wages, and how
you can best spend them. Freedom, remember, has its cares and anxieties
as well as its benefits.