h had been going on at the North for
several years concerning slavery, we must suppose that Angelina and
Sarah Grimke heard it frequently discussed, and had its features
brought before them in a stronger light than that in which they had
previously viewed them. In Sarah's mind, absorbed as it was at that
time by her own sorrows and by the deeply-rooted conviction of her
prospective and dreaded call to the ministry, there appears to have
been no room for any other subject, if we except the strife then going
on in the Quaker Church, and which called forth all her sympathy for
the Orthodox portion, and her strong denunciation of the Hicksites. But
upon Angelina every word she heard against the institution which she
had always abhorred, but accepted as a necessary evil, made an
indelible impression, which deepened when she was again face to face
with its odious lineaments. This begins to show itself soon after her
return home, as will be seen by the following extract:--

"Since my arrival I have enjoyed a continuation of that rest from
exercise of mind which began last spring, until to-night. My soul is
sorrowful, and my heart bleeds. I am ready to exclaim, When shall I be
released from this land of slavery! But if my suffering for these poor
creatures can at all ameliorate their condition, surely I ought to be
quite willing, and I can now bless the Lord that my labor is not all in
vain, though much remains to be done yet."

The secluded and inactive life she now led confirmed the opinion of her
Presbyterian friends that she was a backslider in the divine life.

I must reserve for another chapter the recital of Angelina's efforts to
open the eyes of the members of her household to the unchristian life
they were leading, and the sins they were multiplying on their heads by
their treatments of those they held in bondage.

CHAPTER VI.

Many things about the home life which habit had prevented Angelina from
remarking before, now, since her visit among Friends, struck her as
sinful, and inconsistent with a Christian profession. Only a few days
after her return, she thus writes in her diary:--

"I am much tried at times at the manner in which I am obliged to live
here in so much luxury and ease, and raised so far above the poor, and
spending so much on my board. I want to live in plainness and
simplicity and economy, for so should every Christian do. I am at a
loss how to act, for if I live with mother, which seems