“Sister,” she writes, “seems very much afraid that my pen will be transformed into a venomous serpent when I employ it to address thee, my dear brother, and no wonder, for I like to pay my debts, and, as I received ten dollars’ worth of scolding,[7] I should be guilty of injustice did I not return the favor.  Well! such a lecture I never before had from anyone.  What is the matter with thee?  One would really suppose that we had actually abandoned the anti-slavery cause, and were roving the country, preaching nothing but woman’s rights, when, in fact, I can truly say that whenever I lecture, I forget everything but the slave.  He is all in all for the time being.  And what is the reason I am to be scolded because sister writes letters in the Spectator?  Please let every woman bear her own burdens.  Indeed, I should like to know what I have done yet?  And dost thou really think in my answer to C.E.  Beecher’s absurd views of woman that I had better suppress my own?  If so, I will do it, as thou makest such a monster out of the molehill, but my judgment is not convinced that in this incidental way it is wrong to throw light on the subject.”

  [7] Angelina and Sarah had sent Mr. Weld ten dollars for some
  supposed debts.  He returned it, and said if any trifling sums fell
  due, he would take them out in scolding, and pay himself thus.

She speaks very gratefully of “Brother Lincoln, of Gardner,” who rejoiced to have them speak in his pulpit, and says:—­

“My keen sense of justice compels me to admire such nobility.  He hoped sister would give her views on this branch of the subject in the Spectator.  He thought they were needed, and we are well convinced they are, T.D.W. notwithstanding.  So much for my bump of obstinacy which even thy sledge-hammer cannot beat down.”

The subsequent correspondence, which I regret I have not room to insert, shows that the remonstrances of Whittier and Weld were effective in restraining, for the time being, the impatience of the sisters to urge in their public meetings what, however, they faithfully preached in private—­their conviction that the wrongs of woman were the root of all oppression.

Sarah meekly writes to “brother Weld.”

“After a struggle with my feelings, so severe that I was almost tempted to turn back from the anti-slavery cause, I have given up to what seemed the inevitable, and have thought little of it since.  Perhaps I have done wrong, and if so, I trust I shall see it and repent it.  I do not intend to make any promises, because I may have reason to regret them, but I do not know that I shall scribble any more on the objectionable topic of woman.”

This interesting controversy did not end until several more letters had passed back and forth, and various other topics had been brought in; but it was carried through with the same spirit of candor and love on all sides which marked the beginning.  There was one subject introduced, a sort of side-question which I must notice, as it reveals in a very pleasant manner the religious principle and manly moral courage of Theodore D. Weld.  At the close of one of her letters, Sarah says:—­