strongly against
what she termed the false and awful doctrine, that, though Sarah
refused to acknowledge the force of all she said, it had its effect,
and she gradually lost her hold on her new belief. But losing that, she
lost all hope. "Wormwood and gall" were her portion, and, while she
fulfilled the outward duties of religion, dreariness and settled
despondency took possession of her mind. She writes:

"Tears never moistened my eyes; to prayer I was a stranger. With Job I
dared to curse the day of my birth. One day I was tempted to say
something of the kind to my mother. She was greatly shocked, and
reproved me seriously. I craved a hiding-place in the grave, as a rest
from the distress of my feelings, thinking that no estate could be
worse than the present. Sometimes, being unable to pray, unable to
command one feeling of good, either natural or spiritual, I was tempted
to commit some great crime, thinking I could repent and thus restore my
lost sensibility. On this I often meditated, and assuredly should have
fallen into this snare had not the mercy of God still followed me."

I might go on for many pages painting this dreary picture of a
misdirected life, but enough has been quoted at present to show Sarah
Grimke's strong, earnest, impressionable nature, and the effects upon
it of the teachings of the old theology, mingled with the narrow
Southern ideas of usefulness and woman's sphere. Endowed with a
superior intellect, with a most benevolent and unselfish disposition,
with a cheerful, loving nature, she desired above all things to be an
active, useful member of society. But every noble impulse was strangled
at its birth by the iron bands of a religion that taught the
crucifixion of every natural feeling as the most acceptable offering to
a stern and relentless God. She was now twenty-eight years of age, and
with the exception of the period devoted to her father she had as yet
thought and worked only for herself. I do not mean that she neglected
home duties, or her private charities and visits to the afflicted, but
all these offices were performed from one especial motive and with the
same end in view to avert from herself the wrath of her Maker. This one
thought filled all her mind. All else was as nothing. Family and
friends, home and humanity, were of importance only as they furthered
this object. It is in this spirit that she mentioned her father's
illness and death, and the heroic, self-sacrificing death,