Part 9 (1/2)
Leaving Providence, the sisters attended two Quarterly Meetings in adjacent towns, where, Angelina states, the subject of slavery was brought up, ”and,” she says, ”gospel liberty prevailed to such an extent, that even poor I was enabled to open my lips in a few words.”
She neglected to say that these few words introduced the subject to the meetings, and produced such deep feeling that many hitherto wavering ones went away strengthened and encouraged.
They also attended Yearly Meeting at Newport, where many friends were made; and where Angelina's conversations on the subject which absorbed all her thoughts produced such an impression that she was strongly urged to remain in New England, and become an anti-slavery missionary in the Society of Friends. But she did not feel that she could stay, as, she says, it was shown her very clearly that Shrewsbury was her right place for the summer, though why, she knew not. The reason was plainly revealed a little later.
She returned to Shrewsbury refreshed and strengthened, and feeling that her various experiences had helped her to see more clearly where her duty and her work lay. But she was saddened by the conviction that if she gave herself up, as she felt she must, to the anti-slavery cause, she would be cast loose from her peaceful home, and from very many dear friends, to whom she was bound by the strongest ties of grat.i.tude and affection. She thus writes to a friend:--
”Didst thou ever feel as if thou hadst no home on earth, except in the bosom of Jesus? I feel so now.”
For several weeks after her return to Shrewsbury, Angelina tried to withdraw her mind from the subject which her sister thought was taking too strong hold on it, and interfering with her spiritual needs and exercises. Out of deference to these views, she resumed her studies, and tried to become interested in a ”History of the United States on Peace Principles,” which she had thought some time before of writing.
Then she began the composition of a little book on the ”Beauty and Duty of Forgiveness, as Ill.u.s.trated by the Story of Joseph,” but gave that up to commence a sacred history. In this she did become much interested for a time, but her mind was too heavily burdened to permit her to remain tranquil long. Still the question was ever before her: ”Is there nothing that I can do?” She tried to be cheerful, but felt at all times much more like shedding tears. And her suffering was greater that it was borne alone. The friend, Mrs. Parker, whom she was visiting, was a comparative stranger, whose views she had not yet ascertained, and whom she feared to trouble with her perplexities. Of Sarah, so closely a.s.sociated with Catherine Morris, she could not make an entire confidant, and no other friend was near. Catherine, and some others in Philadelphia, anxious about her evident and growing indifference to her Society duties, tried to persuade her to open a school with one who had long been a highly-prized friend, but Angelina very decidedly refused to listen to the project.
”As to S.W.'s proposal,” she writes, ”I cannot think of acceding to it, because I have seen so clearly that my pen, at least, must be employed in the great reformations of the day, and if I engaged in a school, my time would not be my own. No money that could be given could induce me to bind my body and mind and soul so completely in Philadelphia. There is no lack of light as to the right decision about this.”
For this reply she received a letter of remonstrance from Sarah, to which she thus answered:--
”I think I am as afraid as thou canst be of my doing anything to hurt my usefulness in our Society, if that is the field designed for me to labor in. But, Is it? is often a query of deep interest and solemnity to my mind. I feel no openness among Friends. My spirit is oppressed and heavy laden, and shut up in prison. What am I to do? The only relief I experience is in writing letters and pieces for the peace and anti-slavery causes, and this makes me think that my influence is to reach beyond our own limits. My mind is fully made up not to spend next winter in Philadelphia, if I can help it. I feel strangely released, and am sure I know not what is to become of me. I am perfectly blind as to the future.”
But light was coming, and her sorrowful questionings were soon to be answered.
It was not long before Mrs. Parker saw that her guest's cheerfulness was a.s.sumed, and only thinly veiled some great trouble. As they became more intimate, she questioned her affectionately, and soon drew from her the whole story of her sorrows and her perplexities, and her great need of a friend to feel for her and advise her. Mrs. Parker became this friend, and, though differing from her on some essential points, did much to help and strengthen her. For many days slavery was the only topic discussed between them, and then one morning Angelina entered the breakfast-room with a beaming countenance, and said:--
”It has all come to me; G.o.d has shown me what I can do; I can write an appeal to Southern women, one which, thus inspired, will touch their hearts, and lead them to use their influence with their husbands and brothers. I will speak to them in such tones that they must hear me, and, through me, the voice of justice and humanity.”
This appeal was begun that very day, but before she had written many pages, she was interrupted in her task by a letter which threw her into a state of great agitation, and added to her perplexity. This letter was from Elizur Wright, then secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, the office of which was in New York. He invited her, in the name of the Executive Committee of the Society, to come to New York, and meet with Christian women in sewing circles and private parlors, and talk to them, as she so well knew how to do, on slavery.
The door of usefulness she had been looking for so long was opened at last, but it was so unexpected, so different from anything she had yet thought of, that she was cast into a sea of trouble. Naturally retiring and un.o.btrusive, she shrank from so public an engagement, and this proposal frightened her so much that she could not sleep the first night after receiving it. She had never spoken to the smallest a.s.sembly of Friends, and even in meeting, where all were free to speak as the spirit moved them, she had never uttered a word; and yet, how could she refuse? She delayed her answer until she could make it the subject of prayer and consult with Sarah. Desiring to leave her sister entirely free to express her opinion, she merely wrote to her that she had received the proposition.
Sarah was beginning to feel that Angelina was growing beyond her, and, may be, above her. She did not offer a word of advice, but most tenderly expressed her entire willingness to give up her ”precious child,” to go anywhere, and do anything she felt was right. And in a letter to a friend, alluding to this, she says:--
”My beloved sister does indeed need the prayers of all who love her.
Oh! may He who laid down his life for us guide her footsteps and keep her in the hollow of His holy hand. Perhaps the Lord may be pleased to cast our lot somewhere together. If so, I feel as if I could ask no more in this world.”
Sarah's willingness to surrender her to whatever work she felt called to do was a great relief to Angelina. In writing to thank her and to speak more fully of Mr. Wright's letter, she says:--
”The bare idea that such a thing may be required of me is truly alarming, and that thy mind should be at all resigned to it increases the fear that possibly I may have to do it. It does not appear by the letter that it is expected I should extend my work outside of our Society. One thing, however, I do see clearly, that I am not to do it now, for I have begun to write an 'Appeal to the Christian Women of the South,' which I feel must be finished first.”
She then proceeds to give an account of the part of this Appeal already written, and of what she intended the rest to be, and shows that she shared the feelings common among Southerners, the antic.i.p.ation of a servile insurrection sooner or later. She says:--
”In conclusion I intend to take up the subject of abolitionism, and endeavor to undeceive the South as to the supposed objects of anti-slavery societies, and bear my full testimony to their pacific principles; and then to close with as feeling an appeal as possible to them as women, as Christian women, setting before them the awful responsibility resting on them at this crisis; for if the women of the South do not rise in the strength of the Lord to plead with their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons, that country must witness the most dreadful scenes of murder and blood.
”It will be a pamphlet of a dozen pages, I suppose. My wish is to submit it to the publis.h.i.+ng committee of the A.A.S.S., of New York, for revision, to be published by them with my name attached, for I well know my _name_ is worth more than _myself_, and will add weight to it.[4] Now, dearest, what dost thou think of it? A pretty bold step, I know, and one of which my friends will highly disapprove, but this is a day in which I feel I must act independently of consequences to myself, for of how little consequence will my trials be, if the cause of truth is helped forward ever so little. The South must be reached. An address to men will not reach women, but an address to women will reach the whole community, if it can be reached at all.
”I mean to write to Elizur Wright by to-morrow's mail, informing him that I am writing such a pamphlet, and that I feel as if the proposition of the committee is one of too much importance, either to accept or refuse, without more reflection than I have yet been able to give to it. The trial would indeed be great, to have to leave this sweet, quiet retreat, but if duty calls, I must go....
Many, many thanks for thy dear, long letters.”
[4] In a letter written some time after, she says: ”I would have liked thee to join thy name to mine in my Appeal, but thought it would probably bring out so much opposition and violence, that I preferred bearing it all myself.”
While Angelina was thus busily employed, and buoyed up by the hope of benefiting those whose wrongs she had all her life felt so deeply, Sarah was reaching towards her, and in trying to be indulgent to her and just to her Society at the same time, she was awakening to her own false position and to some of the awful mistakes of her religious life.
Through the summer, such pa.s.sages as the following appear in her diary: --