It was proposed that they should begin to hold a series of parlor meetings, for women only, of course.  But it was soon found that they had, in private conversations, made such an impression, that no parlors would be large enough to accommodate all who desired to hear them speak more at length.  Upon learning this, the Rev. Mr. Dunbar, a Baptist clergyman, offered them the use of his Session room, and the Female Anti-Slavery Society embraced the opportunity to make this the beginning of regular quarterly meetings.  On the Sunday previous to the meeting, notice of it was given out in four churches, without however, naming the proposed speakers.  But it became known in some way that the Misses Grimke were to address the meeting, and a shock went through the whole community.  Not a word would have been said if they had restricted themselves to a private parlor meeting, but that it should be transferred to such a public place as the parlor of a church made quite a different affair of it.  Friends were of course as loud as Friends could properly be in their expressions of disapproval, while other denominations, not so restrained, gave Mr. Dunbar, the abolitionists, and the “two bold Southern women” an unmistakable piece of their mind.  Even Gerrit Smith, always the grandest champion of woman, advised against the meeting, fearing it would be pronounced a Fanny Wright affair, and do more harm than good.  Sarah and Angelina were appalled, the latter especially, feeling almost as if she was the bold creature she was represented to be.  She declared her utter inability, in the face of such antagonism, to go on with the work she had undertaken, and the more she looked at it, the more unnatural and unwise it seemed to her; and when printed hand-bills were scattered about, calling attention in a slighting manner to their names, both felt as if it were humanly impossible for them to proceed any further.  But the meeting had been called, and as there was no business to come before it, they did not know what to do.

“In this emergency,” Angelina writes, “I called upon Him who has ever hearkened unto my cry.  My strength and confidence were renewed, my burden slipped off, and from that time I felt sure of God’s help in the hour of need, and that He would be mouth and wisdom, tongue and utterance to us both.”

“Yesterday,” she continues, “T.D.  Weld came up, like a brother, to sympathize with us and encourage our hearts.  He is a precious Christian, and bade us not to fear, but to trust in God.  In a previous conversation on our holding meetings, he had expressed his full unity with our doing so, and grieved over that factitious state of society which bound up the energies of woman, instead of allowing her to exercise them to the glory of God and the good of her fellow creatures.  His visit was really a strength to us, and I felt no more fear.  We went to the meeting at three o’clock, and found about three hundred women there.  It was opened