She returned to Shrewsbury refreshed and strengthened, and feeling that her various experiences had helped her to see more clearly where her duty and her work lay.  But she was saddened by the conviction that if she gave herself up, as she felt she must, to the anti-slavery cause, she would be cast loose from her peaceful home, and from very many dear friends, to whom she was bound by the strongest ties of gratitude and affection.  She thus writes to a friend:—­

“Didst thou ever feel as if thou hadst no home on earth, except in the bosom of Jesus?  I feel so now.”

For several weeks after her return to Shrewsbury, Angelina tried to withdraw her mind from the subject which her sister thought was taking too strong hold on it, and interfering with her spiritual needs and exercises.  Out of deference to these views, she resumed her studies, and tried to become interested in a “History of the United States on Peace Principles,” which she had thought some time before of writing.  Then she began the composition of a little book on the “Beauty and Duty of Forgiveness, as Illustrated by the Story of Joseph,” but gave that up to commence a sacred history.  In this she did become much interested for a time, but her mind was too heavily burdened to permit her to remain tranquil long.  Still the question was ever before her:  “Is there nothing that I can do?” She tried to be cheerful, but felt at all times much more like shedding tears.  And her suffering was greater that it was borne alone.  The friend, Mrs. Parker, whom she was visiting, was a comparative stranger, whose views she had not yet ascertained, and whom she feared to trouble with her perplexities.  Of Sarah, so closely associated with Catherine Morris, she could not make an entire confidant, and no other friend was near.  Catherine, and some others in Philadelphia, anxious about her evident and growing indifference to her Society duties, tried to persuade her to open a school with one who had long been a highly-prized friend, but Angelina very decidedly refused to listen to the project.

“As to S.W.’s proposal,” she writes, “I cannot think of acceding to it, because I have seen so clearly that my pen, at least, must be employed in the great reformations of the day, and if I engaged in a school, my time would not be my own.  No money that could be given could induce me to bind my body and mind and soul so completely in Philadelphia.  There is no lack of light as to the right decision about this.”

For this reply she received a letter of remonstrance from Sarah, to which she thus answered:—­

“I think I am as afraid as thou canst be of my doing anything to hurt my usefulness in our Society, if that is the field designed for me to labor in.  But, Is it? is often a query of deep interest and solemnity to my mind.  I feel no openness among Friends.  My spirit is oppressed and heavy laden, and shut up in prison.  What am I to do?  The only relief I experience is in writing letters and pieces for the peace and anti-slavery causes, and this makes me think that my influence is to reach beyond our own limits.  My mind is fully made up not to spend next winter in Philadelphia, if I can help it.  I feel strangely released, and am sure I know not what is to become of me.  I am perfectly blind as to the future.”