The first entry in Angelina’s diary after her return to Charleston is as follows:  “Once more in the bosom of my family.  My prayer is that our coming together may be for the better, not for the worse.”

Considering the agitation which 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 the proper place for me, I must live in this way in a great degree.  It is true I can always take the plainest food, and this I do generally, believing that whether at home or abroad I ought to eat nothing I think too sumptuous