ied soon after, and Mrs. Gage was at once excluded from its columns,
by the succeeding editors, refused payment for past labors, or a return
of her manuscripts.

The Missouri Democrat soon after hoisted the flag of Emancipation under
the leadership of Frank Blair. She became one of its correspondents, and
for several years continued to supply its columns with an article once
or twice a week. Appearing in 1858 upon the platform of the Boston
Anti-Slavery Society, she was at once excluded as dangerous to the
interests of the party which the paper represented.

During all the years of her life in Missouri Mrs. Gage frequently
received letters threatening her with personal violence, or the
destruction of her husband's property. Slaves came to her for aid, and
were sent to entrap her, but she succeeded in evading all positive
difficulty and trial.

During the Kansas war she labored diligently with pen, tongue, and
hands, for those who so valiantly fought the oppressor in that hour of
trial. She expected to be waylaid and to be made to suffer for her
temerity, and perhaps she did; for about the close of that perilous year
three disastrous fires, supposed to be the work of incendiaries, greatly
reduced the family resources.

This portion of the life of Mrs. Gage has been dwelt upon at
considerable length, because she regards the struggle then made against
the wickedness, prejudice, and bigotry of mankind, as the main bravery
of her life, and that if there has been heroism in any part of it, it
was then displayed. "If as a woman," she says, "to take the platform
amidst hissing, and scorn, and newspaper vituperations, to maintain the
right of woman to the legitimate use of all the talents God invests her
with; to maintain the rights of the slave in the very ears of the
masters; to hurl anathemas at intemperance in the very camps of the
dram-sellers; if to continue for forty years, in spite of all opposing
forces, to press the triune cause persistently, consistently, and
unflinchingly, entitles me to a humble place among those noble ones who
have gone about doing good, you can put me in that place as it suits
you."

At the breaking out of the war, by reason of her husband's failure in
business at St. Louis, and his ill-health, Mrs. Gage found herself
filling the post of Editor of the Home Department of an Agricultural
paper in Columbus, Ohio. The call for help for the soldiers, was
responded to by all loyal women. Mrs. Gage