nd him one, and there he found
that the text read: "And Nathan said unto David, Thou art the man."
Stronger hint could hardly be given and was not needed; for the Rev.
John Camm and Betsy Hansford, spinster, were shortly afterward married.
The Virginia Betsy thus fairly rivalled the Puritan Priscilla, and
perhaps surpassed her in the delicacy of her hint.

But darker days were coming, when there was to be but little thought of
marrying and giving in marriage; and already the shadow of those days
was felt by womanhood throughout our land. If the women did not as yet
feel the actual presence of the storm, they saw their husbands and
brothers and fathers go heavily for the fear of the days to come, and
they saw the land becoming divided into two hostile camps. The time was
fast nearing when the women of the country would be called upon to show
that they knew as well as any man of them all the meaning of patriotism,
when they would become the very nerves, as the men were the sinews, of
the land in its distress. Darker grew the days and more serious became
the bearing of the women as well as the men. Nor would the former be
excluded from the counsels of their country; though they might not take
place in the public meetings, they inspired the thoughts of the men who
there poured forth a flood of patriotism that could not be stayed. It
was the gaze of his wife, as she sat in an 'agony of suspense among the
audience, that roused Patrick Henry to the splendid effort that lost the
"Parsons" their case and gave him that fame which culminated in the
House of Burgesses when there was question between patriotism and
prudence; and doubtless it was the home council that sent him forth to
do his duty that day and kindle the fire that was to sweep over the land
until British misrule had been "burnt and purged away." That is
speculation, not history; but we know by record the spirit of the women
when there came the days of proof.

Before, however, embarking upon the subject of the women of the
Revolution proper, there may be described the personalities of two
remarkable women who flourished during the period which is being
considered, but whose lives were spent in the conflict of religious
discussion and not that of arms. For some reason,--possibly because of
national liberty of opinions and speech,--America has always been
preeminently the nursery of the female religious fanatic. The eighteenth
century, in its latter half, gave to the w