persecution of their victim. But so it is, the innocent shall not only
not be cut down, but they who practice unrighteousness shall themselves
be overtaken.

But to the interview. I should be glad to describe my feelings on first
meeting Miss King after she had passed through that fiery furnace of
affliction. But I desist. The "engagement," I have already said,
displayed a moral heroism which no one can comprehend who has not been
in America, but the passage through was more than sublime.

She related to me the events of the two preceding weeks as she had known
them to transpire in her own family, and as she had heard of them as
transpiring in the village. I cannot write the details. It chills my
blood to think of them. The various letters published in this narrative
will suffice to give the reader some idea of things as they were; while
the hundreds of things which cannot be written and which, because of
their littleness are the more faithful exponents of meanness, must be
left to the reader to imagine as best he can. I say as best he can,
since no Englishman can imagine the thing precisely as it was.

She was reviled, upbraided, ridiculed, tormented; and by some, efforts
were made to bribe her into the selling of her conscience. What the
vilest and most vulgar prejudices could suggest were hurled at both our
devoted heads. Letters were not permitted to be received or sent without
their being first inspected by the parents. And finally she was
imprisoned after the manner set forth in the letter of Mr. Porter. So
rigid was the surveillance that her sister was also put under the same
"regimen," because her sympathies were with the persecuted and not the
persecutors.