Sarah, whose loving heart had, during the long talk, been moving nearer and nearer to that of her clear child, surprised her by speaking in the beautiful, tender language of Ruth:  “If thou indeed feelest thus, and I cannot doubt it, then my mind too is made up.  Where thou goest, I will go; thy God shall be my God, thy people my people.  What thou doest, I will, to my utmost, aid thee in doing.  We have wept and prayed together, we will go and work together.”

And thus fully united, heart and soul and mind, they departed for New York, Angelina first writing to inform the committee of her decision, and while thanking them for the salary offered, refusing to receive any.  She also told them that her sister would accompany her and co-operate with her, and they would both bear their own expense.

After this time, the sisters found themselves in frequent and intimate association with the men who, as officers of the American Anti-Slavery Society, had the direction of the movement.  The marked superiority of their new friends in education, experience, culture, piety, liberality of view, statesmanship, decision of character, and energy in action, to the Philadelphia Quakers and Charleston slave-holders, must have been to them a surprise and a revelation.  Working with a common purpose, these men were of varied accomplishments and qualities.  William Jay and James G. Birney were cultured men of the world, trained in legal practice and public life; Arthur Tappan, Lewis Tappan, John Rankin, and Duncan Dunbar, were successful merchants; Abraham L. Cox, a physician in large practice; Theodore D. Weld, Henry B. Stanton, Alvan Stewart, and Gerrit Smith were popular orators; Joshua Leavitt, Elizur Wright, and William Goodell were ready writers and able editors; Beriah Green and Amos A. Phelps were pulpit speakers and authors, and John G. Whittier was a poet.  Some of them had national reputations.  Those who in December, 1835, protested against the false charges of publishing incendiary documents calculated to excite servile war, made against the Society by President Jackson, had signed names almost as well known as his, and had written better English than his message.  Several of them had been officers of the American Anti-Slavery Society from its formation.  Their energy had been phenomenal:  they had raised funds, sent lecturers into nearly every county in the free States, and circulated in a single year more than a million copies of newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, and books.  Their moderation, good judgment, and piety had been seen and known of all men.  Faithful in the exposure of unfaithfulness to freedom on the part of politicians and clergymen, they denounced neither the Constitution nor the Bible.  Their devotion to the cause of abolition was pure; for its sake they suppressed the vanity of personal notoriety and of oratorical display.  Among them, not one can be found who sought to make a name as a leader, speaker, or writer; not one who was jealous of the