helping hand, the God-speed of every Christian heart.  It is a work of time, a labor of patience, to become an effective school teacher; and it should be a work of love in which they who engage should not abate heart or hope until it is done.  And after all, it is one of woman’s most sacred rights to have the privilege of forming the symmetry and rightly adjusting the mental balance of an immortal mind.”  “I have written a lecture on education, and I am also writing a small book.”

Thus, whilst filling her vocation as a teacher in Little York, was she deeply engrossed in thought as to how she could best promote the welfare of her race.  But as she was devoted to the work in hand, she soon found that fifty-three untrained little urchins overtaxed her naturally delicate physical powers; it also happened just about this time that she was further moved to enter the Anti-Slavery field as a lecturer substantially by the following circumstance:  About the year 1853, Maryland, her native State, had enacted a law forbidding free people of color from the North from coming into the State on pain of being imprisoned and sold into slavery.  A free man, who had unwittingly violated this infamous statute, had recently been sold to Georgia, and had escaped thence by secreting himself behind the wheel-house of a boat bound northward; but before he reached the desired haven, he was discovered and remanded to slavery.  It was reported that he died soon after from the effects of exposure and suffering.  In a letter to a friend referring to this outrage, Mrs. Harper thus wrote:  “Upon that grave I pledged myself to the Anti-Slavery cause.”

Having thus decided, she wrote in a subsequent letter, “It may be that God himself has written upon both my heart and brain a commission to use time, talent and energy in the cause of freedom.”  In this abiding faith she came to Philadelphia, hoping that the way would open for usefulness, and to publish her little book (above referred to).  She visited the Anti-Slavery Office and read Anti-Slavery documents with great avidity; in the mean time making her home at the station of the Underground Rail Road, where she frequently saw passengers and heard their melting tales of suffering and wrong, which intensely increased her sympathy in their behalf.  Although anxious to enter the Anti-Slavery field as a worker, her modesty prevented her from pressing her claims; consequently as she was but little known, being a young and homeless maiden (an exile by law), no especial encouragement was tendered her by Anti-Slavery friends in Philadelphia.

During her stay in Philadelphia she published some verses entitled, “Eliza Harris crossing the River on the Ice.”  It was deemed best to delay the issuing of the book.

After spending some weeks in Philadelphia, she concluded to visit Boston.  Here she was treated with the kindness characteristic of the friends in the Anti-Slavery Office whom she visited, but only made a brief stay, after which she proceeded to New Bedford, the “hot-bed of the fugitives” in Massachusetts, where by invitation she addressed a public meeting on the subject of Education and the Elevation of the Colored Race.