“8th Mo. 3d.  Went this morning to Orange Street meeting after a season of conflict and prayer.  I believed the Lord required this sacrifice, but I went with a heart bowed down, praying to Jesus that I might not speak my own words, that he would be pleased to make a way for me, or, if what I had to deliver brought upon me opposition, to strengthen me to endure it.  The meeting had been gathered some time when I arose, and after repeating our Lord’s thrice-repeated query to Peter, ’Lovest thou me?’ I remarked that it was addressed to one who had been forgiven much, and who could appeal to the Searcher of hearts that he did indeed love Him.  Few of us had had the temptation to endure which overcame Peter when he denied his Lord and Master.  But although few of us might openly deny the Lord who bought us, yet there is, I apprehend, in many of us an evil heart of unbelief, which alienates us from God and disqualifies from answering the query as Peter did.  I had proceeded so far when Jonathan Evans rose and said:  ’I hope the Friend will now be satisfied.’  I immediately sat down and was favored to feel perfectly calm.  The language, ’Ye can have no power at all against me unless it be given you,’ sustained me, and although I am branded in the public eye with the disapprobation of a poor fellow worm, and it was entirely a breach of discipline in him to publicly silence a minister who has been allowed to exercise her gifts in her own meeting without ever having been requested to be silent, yet I feel no anger towards him.  Surely the feelings that could prompt to so cruel an act cannot be the feelings of Christian love.  But it seems to be one more evidence that my dear Saviour designs to bring me out of this place.  How much has his injunction rested on my mind of latter time.  ’When they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another.’  I pray unto Thee, O Lord Jesus, to direct the wanderer’s footsteps and to plant me where thou seest I can best promote thy glory.  Expect to go to Burlington to-morrow.”

To those unacquainted with the Society of Friends fifty years ago, and its discipline at that period, so different from what it is now, this incident may seem of little consequence; but it was, on the contrary, extremely serious.  Jonathan Evans was the presiding elder of the Yearly Meetings, a most important personage, whose authority was undisputed.  He was sometimes alluded to as “Pope Jonathan.”  He had disliked Sarah from the time of her connection with the Society, and had habitually treated her and her offerings with a silent indifference most significant, and which, of course, had its effect on many who pinned their prejudices as well as their faith to the coats of the elders.  It was owing entirely to this secretly-exercised but well-understood opposition, that Sarah had for nine long years used her ministerial gift only through intense suffering.  She believed, against much rebellion in her own breast, that it had been given her to use in God’s service, and that she had no right to withhold it; but she had been made so often to feel the condemnation under which she labored, that she was really not much surprised when the final blow came.