said: "I was not a happy child, nor a happy woman, until in mature
life, I outgrew my early religious faith, and felt free to think and
act from my own convictions." Having joined the church in extreme
youth, and being morbidly conscientious, she suffered constant torment
about her own sins, and those of her neighbors. She was a religious
enthusiast, and in time of revivals was one of the bright and shining
lights in exhortation and prayer.

She was roused to thought on woman's position by a discussion in the
church as to whether women should be permitted to speak and pray in
promiscuous assemblies. Some of the deacons protested against a
practice, in ordinary times, that might be tolerated during seasons of
revival. But those who had discovered their gifts in times of
excitement were not so easily remanded to silence; and thus the Church
was distracted then as now with the troublesome question of woman's
rights. Sometimes a liberal pastor would accord a latitude denied by
the elders and deacons, and sometimes one church would be more liberal
than others in the same neighborhood, or synod; hence individuals and
congregations were continually persecuted and arraigned for violation
of church discipline and God's law, according to man's narrow
interpretation. "Thus," she says, "my mind was confused and uncertain
with conflicting emotions and opinions in regard to all human
relations. And it was many years before I understood the philosophy of
life, before I learned that happiness did not depend on outward
conditions, but on the harmony within, on the tastes, sentiments,
affections, and ambitions of the individual soul."

On leaving school, Paulina had made up her mind to be a missionary to
the Sandwich Islands, as that was the Mecca in those days to which all
pious young women desired to go. But after five months of ardent
courtship, Mr. Francis Wright, a young merchant of wealth and position
in Utica, New York, persuaded her that there were heathen enough in
Utica to call out all the religious zeal she possessed, to say nothing
of himself as the chief of sinners, hence in special need of her
ministrations.

So they began life together, worshiped in Bethel church, and devoted
themselves to the various reforms that in turn attracted their
attention. They took an active part in the arrangements for the first
Anti-Slavery Convention, held in Utica, Oct. 21, 1835, a day on which
anti-slavery meetings were mobbed and violen