e warned his family
against the pride and pomp of the world, and the family income being
something under four hundred dollars, they observed his edict.

Life was a warfare--the devil constantly lay in wait--we must resist.
This man hated evil--he hated evil more than he loved the good. His wife
loved the good more than she hated evil, and he chided her--in love. She
sought to explain her position. He was amazed at her temerity. What
right had a woman to think!--what right had any one to think!

He prayed for her.

And soon she grew to keep her thoughts to herself. Sometimes she would
write them out, and then destroy them before any eyes but her own could
read. Once she went to a neighbor's and saw Paine's "Age of Reason." She
peeped into its pages by stealth, and then put it quickly away. The next
day she went back and read some more, and among other things she read
was this, "To live a life of love and usefulness--to benefit
others--must bring its due reward, regardless of belief."

She thought about it more and more and wondered really if God could and
would damn a person who just went ahead and did the best he could. She
wanted to ask her husband about it--to talk it over with him in the
evening--but she dare not. She knew too well what his answer would
be--for her even to think such thoughts was a sin. And so she just
decided she would keep her thoughts to herself, and be a dutiful wife,
and help her husband in his pastoral work as a minister's wife should.

But her proud spirit began to droop, she ceased to sing at her work, her
face grew wan, yellow and sad. Yet still she worked--there were no
servants to distress her--and when her own work was done she went out
among the neighbors and helped them--she cared for the sick, the infirm,
she dressed the new-born babe, and closed the eyes of the dying.

That this woman had a thirst for liberty, and the larger life, is shown
in that she herself prepared and presented a memorial to the President
of the United States praying that slavery be abolished. So far as I
know, this was the first petition ever prepared in America on the
subject by a woman.

This minister's family rarely remained over two years in a place. At
first they were received with loving arms, and there were donation
parties where cider was spilled on the floors, doughnuts ground into the
carpets, and several haircloth chairs hopelessly wrecked. But the larder
was filled and there was much good-cheer