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be “in patience to possess our souls.” . . . I expect, from all I can learn of the views of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, that it is their intention to take the consciences of their agents into their keeping; they have disclaimed, as thou wilt see by the Emancipator, all connection with us,1 and I suppose will do the same by thee. . . .
Dear brother Garrison has been passing the day with us. As iron sharpeneth iron, so doth a man the countenance of his friend, and it has cheered my spirit to find that he unites fully with us on the subject of the rights of woman.
I did not see how his enlightened mind could do otherwise, but it has been pleasant to hear the confirmation from his own lips. . . .
Brother Phelps came out here and spent an evening very2 pleasantly with us. We talked the whole matter over.
He said he came to learn, and listened very patiently to all our arguments in favor of women's preaching.
He said his views had been of long standing, and he had not yet re-examined the matter.
I hope he will do so, but really the abolitionists are in such trouble about the clerical defection that I doubt whether he will have time.
However, he has given uo the idea of publishing a protest against us.
To this, Angelina adds a postscript, asking—
What would'st thou think of the Liberator abandoning abolitionism as a primary object, and becoming the vehicle of all these grand principles?3 Is not the time rapidly coming for such a change; say after the contract with the Massachusetts Society is closed with the editor; the first of next year?
I trust brother Garrison may be divinely directed.4
The
Grimkes and
Henry C. Wright were unquestionably the cause of the official caution to the public given through the
Emancipator as referred to by the
