SOURCE: Gibson, Donald B. “Faith, Doubt, and Apostasy: Evidence of Things Unseen in Frederick Douglass's Narrative.” In Frederick Douglass: New Literary and Historical Essays, edited by Eric J. Sundquist, pp. 84-98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

In the following essay, Gibson discusses the appendix to Douglass's narrative as an attempt to conform to religious orthodoxy and to disguise the main text's hostility to Christianity.

Strange order of things! Oh, Nature, where art thou. Are not these blacks thy children as well as we?

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur¹

My Lord and Master, help me! My load is more than I can bear. God has hid himself from me and I am left in darkness and misery.

An Anonymous Slave Mother²

Jesus is dead and God has gone away.

The Souls of Black Folk³

Henry Bibb recounts in his Narrative of 1849 how he tried, time and time again...