ame together to meet her and her
sister Sarah. The numbers and the interest increased till she became
widely known. She and her sister talked to them about slavery in their
own parlors. Soon no parlors could hold the throngs that gathered to
hear her. The small vestry of a church was given to her, then a large
vestry. But this was too small, and the body of the church was opened
to the crowd which had been attracted by her. There, on a platform
beneath the pulpit, for the first time she stood and spoke at what
might be called a public meeting, though she spoke only to women. In
the spring of 1837, the sisters went through a similar experience in
Boston, speaking to women only. She went to Lynn to address the women,
and there men crowded in with their wives and daughters. That was the
beginning of women's speaking to promiscuous assemblies in
Massachusetts.

"Hers was the eloquence of a broken heart. As she gave way to the deep
yearnings of affection for the mother that bore her, still a
slaveholder, for her brothers and sisters, a large family circle, and
for all who had been most closely bound to her by ties of kindred and
neighborhood, she must have felt the desolation of a soul disappointed
and broken in its dearest earthly hopes and love. All the sweet and
tender affections which intertwine themselves so inseparably with the
thought of home had been turned into instruments of torture. As she
thought of her native city, and spoke out her feelings toward it, her
language might well remind one of the lamentations of the ancient
prophets, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and
stonest them that are sent unto thee!' But this broken heart had a
higher life and a mightier voice than can be given or taken away by
any earthly affection. While therefore she often spoke with a pathos
which melted and subdued those who listened to her, she also rose into
a loftier strain, and spoke with the mingled love and sternness of a
messenger from God."

Passages like the following may give some idea of the solemnity and
power with which she, who had left all and taken up her cross in
defence of a poor and friendless race, could appeal to assembled
multitudes:

The sufferings of the slaves are not only innumerable, but they
are indescribable. I may paint the agony of kindred torn from
each other's arms, to meet no more in time; I may depict the
inflictions of the blood-stained lash; but I can