In 1810, the calm current of Miss Hasseltine's life was disturbed by
circumstances which were to change all her prospects, and color her
whole future destiny. From the quiet and seclusion of her New England
home, she was called to go to the ends of the earth, on a mission of
mercy to the dark browed and darker minded heathen.

It is perhaps impossible for us to realize now what was then the
magnitude of such an enterprise. Our wonderful facilities for
intercourse with the most distant nations, and the consequent vast
amount of travel, were entirely unknown forty years ago. A journey of
two hundred miles then involved greater perplexity and required nearly
as much preparation, and was certainly attended with more fatigue than a
voyage to England at the present day. The subject of evangelizing the
heathen in foreign countries had scarcely received any attention in
Europe, and in this country there was not even a Missionary Society.
That a female should renounce the refinements of her enlightened and
Christian home, and go thousands of miles across unknown oceans

"to the farthest verge
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,"

to spend her life in an unhealthy climate, among a race whose language
was strange to her ear, whose customs were revolting to her delicacy,
and who might moreover make her a speedy victim to her zeal in their
behalf,--a thing so common now as to excite no surprise and little
interest--was then hardly deemed possible, if indeed, the idea of it
entered the imagination. To decide the question of such an undertaking
as this, as well as another question affecting her individual happiness
through life, was Miss Hasseltine now summoned.