When they left the farmer, James remarked to his companion:

“Everybody seems to think that I am going to be a preacher; why is it?” He was so unconscious of his abilities for that profession that he was actually puzzled to know why it was.

“I suppose it is because they think you are better qualified for that than any other calling,” his companion replied. “I never heard you say what profession you should choose.”

“No, I don’t think you have; nor any one else When the time comes I shall choose for the best. I should like to be a preacher, and I should like to be a teacher. I don’t know but I should like to be a lawyer. I shouldn’t want to be a doctor.”

James stated the matter here just about as it was at that time. He was going to make the most of himself possible, in the first place—a very sensible idea for a youth—and then devote himself to the manifest line of duty.

At this time the anti-slavery contest ran high through-out the country. In Ohio its friends were as zealous and fearless as they were anywhere in the country. The question of the abolition of slavery was discussed, not only in pulpits and on public rostrums, but in village and school lyceums. It was discussed in the Debating Society of the Seminary. “Ought Slavery to be abolished in this Republic?” This was a question that drew out James in one of his best efforts. From the time his attention was drawn to the subject, he was a thorough hater of slavery. It was such a monstrous wrong, that he had no patience with it.

“A disgrace to the nation,” he said. “People fighting to be free, and then reducing others to a worse slavery than that which they fought! It is a burning shame!”

“The founders of the government didn’t think so,” answered the schoolmate addressed. “If they had thought so, they would have made no provision for it.”

“So much more the shame,” replied James. “The very men who fought to break the British yoke of bondage legalized a worse bondage to others! That is what makes my blood boil. I can’t understand how men of intelligence and honour could do what is so inconsistent and inhuman.”

“Slavery wouldn’t stand much of a show where you are, I judge,” added his schoolmate. “You would sweep it away without discussing the question whether immediate emancipation is safe or not.”

“Safe!” exclaimed James, in a tone of supreme contempt; “it is always safe to do right, and it is never safe to do wrong, especially to perpetrate such a monstrous wrong as to buy and sell men.”

It was this inborn and inbred hostility to human bondage that James carried into the discussion of the question named, in their school lyceum. He prepared himself for the debate with more than usual carefulness. He read whatever he could find upon the subject, and he taxed his active brain to the utmost in forging arguments against the crime.

Companions and friends had been surprised and interested before by his ability in debate; but on this occasion he discussed his favourite theme with larger freedom and more eloquence than ever. There was a manly and exhaustive treatment of the question, such as he had not evinced before. It enlisted his sympathies and honest convictions as no previous question had done; so that his fervour and energy were greater than ever, holding the audience in rapt and delighted attention.

Commenting upon his effort afterwards, one of his schoolmates said to a number of his companions present:

“We’ll send Jim to Congress one of these days.” James was present, and the remark was intended both for sport and praise.