ong, be true,
And dare to stand alone.
Strike for the Right whate'er ye do,
Though helpers there be none.

"Oh! bend not to the swelling surge
Of popular crime and wrong.
'Twill bear thee on to Ruin's verge
With current wild and strong.

"Strike for the Right, tho' falsehood rail
And proud lips coldly sneer.
A poisoned arrow cannot wound
A conscience pure and clear.

"Strike for the Right, and with clean hands
Exalt the truth on high,
Thou'lt find warm sympathizing hearts
Among the passers by,

"Those who have thought, and felt, and prayed,
Yet could not singly dare
The battle's brunt; but by thy side
Will every danger share.

"Strike for the Right. Uphold the Truth.
Thou'lt find an answering tone
In honest hearts, and soon no more
Be left to stand alone."

She handed this poem to the gentleman with whom she had been conversing,
and he afterwards told her that it decided him to give up all for
principle. He led off in his district in what was soon known as the Free
Soil party, the root of the present triumphant Republican party.

In 1853 the family of Mrs. Gage removed to St. Louis. Those who fought
the anti-slavery battle in Massachusetts have little realization of the
difficulty and danger of maintaining similar sentiments in a
slaveholding community, and a slave State. Mrs. Gage spoke boldly
whenever her thought seemed to be required, and soon found herself
branded as an "abolitionist" with every adjective appended that could
tend to destroy public confidence.

While Colonel Chambers, the former accomplished editor of the Missouri
Republican lived, she wrote for his columns, and at one time summing up
the resources of that great State, she advanced this opinion: "Strike
from your statute books the laws that give man the right to hold
property in man, and ten years from this time Missouri will lead its
sister State on the eastern shore of the Mississippi."

After the publication of this article, Colonel Chambers was waited upon
and remonstrated with by some old slaveholders, for allowing an
abolitionist to write for his journal. "Such sentiments," they said,
"would destroy the Union." "If your Union," replied he, "is based upon a
foundation so unstable that one woman's breath can blow it down, in
God's name let her do it. She shall say her say while I live and edit
this paper."

He d