is safe
return. Oh, that he may make no change of land except for the
better! Then do my thoughts rest with my dear mother, toiling
unremittingly through the long day and at eve, seated in her
arm-chair, wrapt in solemn stillness, and later reclining on her
lonely pillow. How often, when I am enjoying the sweet hour of
twilight, do I think of the sadness that has so long o'ershadowed
her brow, and ardently entreat the God of love and mercy to give
her that peace which is found only in a resignation to his just and
holy will. How numerous are our favors! We have a comfortable
subsistence and health to relish it; but, more than this, we, as a
family, are bound together by the strongest ties of affection that
seem daily to grow stronger....
I arose this morning at half-past four. Two ladies from Albany are
visiting here, the beautiful Abigail Mott, a Friend and a
thorough-going Abolitionist and reformer, and Mrs. Worthington, a
strict Methodist. Mr. Taylor took eight of us to the Whig
convention at Sandy Hill yesterday, and I attended my first
political meeting. I enjoyed every moment of it.
She also relates how Miss Mott would come to her room and expound to
her most beautifully the doctrine of Unitarianism, and then Mrs.
Worthington would come and pray with her long and earnestly to
counteract the pernicious effect of Miss Mott's heresies. While she was
accustomed to the liberal theology of the Hicksite Quakers, this was
the first time she ever had heard the more scholarly interpretation of
the Unitarian church.
From 1840 to 1845 Susan and Hannah taught almost continuously,
receiving only $2 or $2.50 a week and board, but living with most rigid
economy and giving the father all they could spare to help pay interest
on the mortgage which rested on factory, mills and home. He gave his
notes for every dollar and, years afterwards, when prosperity came,
paid all of them with scrupulous exactness. It was in these early days
of teaching that Miss Anthony saw with indignation the injustice
practiced towards women. Repeatedly she would take a school which a
male teacher had been obliged to give up because of inefficiency and,
although she made a thorough success, would receive only one-fourth of
his salary. It was the custom everywhere to pay men four times the
wages of women for exactly the same amount of work, often not so well
done.
Mr. Anthony
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