The Grimké Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimké: the First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights by Catherine H. Birney
page 37 of 312 (11%)
page 37 of 312 (11%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
Writing from Greenhill in October, she says: "On last Fifth Day I changed my dress for the more plain one of the Quakers, not because I think making my clothes in their peculiar manner makes me any better, but because I believe it was laid upon me, seeing that my natural will revolted from the idea of assuming this garb. I trust I have made this change in a right spirit, and with a single eye to my dear Redeemer. It was accompanied by a feeling of much peace." Late in the autumn she sailed for Charleston, and was received by the home circle with affection, though her plain dress gave occasion for some slighting remarks. These, however, no longer affected her as they once had done, and she bore them in silence. Surrounded by her family, all of whom she warmly loved, in spite of their want of sympathy with her, rooming with her "precious child," with full opportunity to counsel and direct her, and intent upon carrying out reform in the household, she was for a time almost contented. She took up her old routine, her charities, and her schools, and attended meeting regularly. But a very few weeks sufficed to make her realize her utter inability to harmonize the discordant elements in her home, or to make more than a transient impression upon her mother. Day by day she became more discouraged; everything seemed to conspire to thwart her efforts for good, which were misconstrued and misunderstood. Surrounded, too, and besieged by all the familiar influences of her old life, it became harder to sustain her peculiar views and habits, and spiritual luke-warmness gained rapidly upon her. With deep humility she acknowledged the mistake she had made in going back to Charleston, which place was evidently not the vineyard in which she could labor to any profit. |
|