into my old round of drudgery, but with hope and pride
shut out of it. Once my burden pressed so that I could not sleep, and
rose at early dawn, and sat looking over the meadow, seeing nothing but
a dense, white fog. I leaned back, closed my eyes and thought how like
it was to my own life. When I looked again, oh, the vision of glory
which, met my sight!

The rising sun had sent, through an opening in the woods, a shaft of
light, which centred on a hickory tree that stood alone in the meadow,
and was then in the perfection of its golden autumn glory. It dripped
with moisture, blazed and shimmered. The high lights were diamond
tipped, and between them and the deepest shadow was every tint of orange
and yellow, mingled and blended in those inimitable lines of natural
foliage. Over it, through it, and around it, rolled the white fog, in
great masses, caressing the earth and hanging from the zenith, like the
veil of the temple of the Most High. All around lay the dark woods,
framing in the vision like serried ranks encompassing a throne, to which
great clouds rolled, then lifted and scudded away, like couriers coming
for orders and hastening to obey them.

John's New Jerusalem never was so grand! No square corners and
forbidding walls. The gates were not made of several solid pearls, but
of millions of pearletts, strung on threads of love, offering no
barriers through which any soul might not pass. My Patmos had been
visited and I could dwell in it, work and wait; but I would live in it,
not lie in a tomb, and once more I took hold of life.

I organized a society at which we read, had refreshments and
danced--yea, broke church rules and practiced promiscuous dancing minus
promiscuous kissing. Of course this was wicked. I roamed the woods,
brought wild flowers and planted them, set out berry bushes, and
collected a large variety of roses and lilies.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MEXICAN WAR.--AGE, 30-32.

James G. Birney was the presidential candidate of the "Liberty Party" in
1844, as he had been in '40. During the campaign I wrote under my
initials for _The Spirit of Liberty_, and exposing the weak part of an
argument soon came to be my recognized forte. For using my initials I
had two reasons--my dislike and dread of publicity and the fear of
embarrassing the Liberty Party with the sex question. Abolitionists were
men of sharp angles. Organizing them was like binding crooked sticks in
a bundle, and one of the questions w