ummons to the field of battle;
but Wisdom crieth without, 'Whosoever is of a willing heart, let him
bring an offering.' Shall woman refuse her response to the call? Was
she created to be a helpmeet for man--his sorrows to divide, his joys
to share, and all his toils to lighten by her willing aid, and shall
she refuse to aid him with her prayers, her labors, and her counsels
too, at such a time, in such a cause as this?"

There had been, from the beginning of the anti-slavery agitation, no
lack of women sympathizers with it. Some of the best and brightest of
the land had poured forth their words of grief, of courage, and of hope
through magazines and newspapers, in prose and in verse, and had proved
their willingness to suffer for the slave, by enduring unshrinkingly
ridicule and wrath, pecuniary loss and social ostracism. All over the
country, in almost every town and village, women labored untiringly to
raise funds for the printing of pamphlets, sending forth lecturers and
for the pay of special agents. They were regular attendants also on the
anti-slavery meetings and conventions, often outnumbering the men, and
privately made some of the best suggestions that were offered. But so
strong and general was the feeling against women speaking in any public
place, that, up to the time when Sarah and Angelina Grimke began their
crusade, it was an almost unheard of thing for a woman to raise her
voice in any but a church prayer-meeting. During the sittings of the
Anti-Slavery Convention in Philadelphia, in 1833, which was attended by
a number of women, chiefly Friends, Lucretia Mott, though she had had
experience in speaking in Quaker meetings, timidly arose one day, and,
in fear lest she might offend, ventured to propose an amendment to a
certain resolution. With rare indulgence and good sense, Beriah Green,
the president of the convention, encouraged her to proceed; and May, in
his "Recollections," says: "She made a more impressive and effective
speech than any other that was made in the convention, excepting only
the closing address of our president."

Two other ladies, Esther Moore and Lydia White, emboldened by Mrs.
Mott's example, afterwards said a few words on one or two occasions,
but these were the only infringements, during all those early years of
agitation, of St. Paul's oft-quoted injunction.

When Sarah and Angelina Grimke accepted the invitation of the Female
Anti-Slavery Society of Boston, to come and labor