BY A.E. GRIMKÉ.

"Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not within
thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house more than all
the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time,
then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews
from another place: but thou and thy father's house shall be
destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom
for such a time as this. And Esther bade them return Mordecai
this answer:--and so will I go in unto the king, which is not
according to law, and _if I perish, I perish._" Esther IV.
13-16.


RESPECTED FRIENDS,

It is because I feel a deep and tender interest in your present and
eternal welfare that I am willing thus publicly to address you. Some of
you have loved me as a relative, and some have felt bound to me in
Christian sympathy, and Gospel fellowship; and even when compelled by a
strong sense of duty, to break those outward bonds of union which bound
us together as members of the same community, and members of the same
religious denomination, you were generous enough to give me credit, for
sincerity as a Christian, though you believed I had been most strangely
deceived. I thanked you then for your kindness, and I ask you _now_, for
the sake of former confidence, and former friendship, to read the
following pages in the spirit of calm investigation and fervent prayer.
It is because you have known me, that I write thus unto you.

But there are other Christian women scattered over the Southern States,