Both men sprang to their feet, hurried away and never returned.

General Conference at its session in Baltimore, in 1840, passed the “Black Gag” law, which forbade colored members of the church to give testimony in church-trials against white members, in any state where they were forbidden to testily in courts.  Four members of the Pittsburg Conference voted for it, and when my husband returned from the dedication, I learned that three of them had figured prominently in the exercises, and he had refused to commune on account of their ministrations.

Everything went smoothly for ten days, when my husband came to our room, where I sat writing, threw himself on the bed and poured out such a torrent of accusations as I had not dreamed possible, and of which I refrain from giving any adequate description.  I looked up and saw that he was livid with rage.  His words appeared the ravings of a mad man, yet there was method in them, and no crime in the calendar with which they did not charge me.  Butter money was not accounted for, pickles and preserves missing, things about the house were going to destruction, the country was full of falsehoods and I had told them all.  It was all a blur of sound and fury, but in it stood out these words: 

“You ruined Samuel, and now you are trying to ruin the boys and those two fool preachers.  People know it, too, and I am ashamed to show my face for the talk.”

When he seemed to have finished, I asked: 

“How long since you learned my real character?”

This spurred him to new wrath, and he exclaimed: 

“There now, that’s the next of it.  You will go and tell that I’ve abused you.  It’s not me.  I never suspected your honesty, but my mother, yes, my poor old mother.  I would not care, if you could only behave yourself before my mother!”

I sat leaning my elbows on my table with my head in my hands, and the words “ruined Samuel” became a refrain.  I thought of the danger out of which I had plucked him while in Louisville, of the force with which I had grappled him with hooks of steel, as he hung on the outer edge of that precipice of dissipation, while I clung to the Almighty Arm for help.  I thought of the tears and solemnity with which this man had given to me the dying message of that rescued brother.  Earth seemed to be passing away, and to leave no standing room.  I was teaching school in the abandoned meeting-house.  It was noon recess and I must hurry or be late.  I passed into the hall and out of the house, with the thought “I cross his threshold now for the last time;” but I must remain near and finish my school, when I would be present to meet those monstrous charges before the world.  My reveries did not interfere with my school duties, and when they were over I sat in the old meeting-house or walked its one aisle, with the quiet dead lying all around me, thinking of that good fight which I should fight, ere I finished my course, and lay down to rest as they did.  But the sun went down, the long twilight drew on the coming night, and I was homeless.  Where should I go?