[3] Apropos of sowing anti-slavery truths, I remember seeing at the first anti-slavery fair I attended,—­in 1853, I think,—­a sampler made in 1836 by a little girl, a pupil in a school where evidently great pains were taken to propagate anti-slavery principles.  On the sampler was neatly worked the words:  “May the points of our needles prick the slave-holders’ consciences.”

During this winter we find nothing especial to narrate concerning Sarah and Angelina.  Sarah’s diary continues to record her trials in meeting, and her religious sufferings, notwithstanding her recently expressed belief that her eternal salvation was secured.  Angelina kept no diary at this time, and wrote few letters, but we see from an occasional allusion in these that her mind was busy, and that her warmest interest was enlisted in the cause of abolition.

She read everything she could get on the subject, wrote some effective articles for the anti-slavery papers, and pondered night and day over the question of what more she could do.  One practical thing she did was to write to the widow of her brother Thomas, proposing to purchase from her the woman whom she (Angelina) in her girlhood had refused to own, and who afterwards became the property of her brother.  This woman was now the mother of several children, and Angelina, jointly with Mrs. Frost, proposed to purchase them all, bring them to Philadelphia, and emancipate them.  But no notice was taken of the application, either by their sister-in-law or their sister Eliza, to whom Angelina repeatedly wrote on the subject.

Learning from their mother that she was about to make her will, Angelina and Sarah wrote to her, asking that her slaves be included in their portions.  To this she assented, but managed to dispose of all but four before she died.  These were left to her two anti-slavery daughters, who at once freed them, at the same time purchasing the husband of one of them and freeing him.

As she continued to study anti-slavery doctrines, one thing became very plain to Angelina—­that the friends of emancipation, in order to clear their skirts of all participation in the slave-owner’s sin, must cease to use the products of slave labor.  To this view she tried to bring all with whom she discussed the main subject, and so important did it appear to her, that she thought of writing to some of the anti-slavery friends in New York about it, but her courage failed.  After what she had gone through because of the publication of her letter to Mr. Garrison, she shrank from the risk of having another communication made public.  But her mind was deeply exercised on this point, and when—­in the spring—­she and Sarah went to attend Yearly Meeting in Providence, R.I., an opportunity offered for her to express her views to a prominent member of the New York Society, whom she met on the boat.  She begged this lady to talk to Gerrit Smith, recently converted from colonization, and others, about it,