or Freedmen's Associations. She
worked without fee or reward, asking only of those who were willing, to
give enough to defray her expenses--for herself--thankful if she
received, cheerful if she did not.
Following up this course till the summer days made lecturing seem
impossible, she started from St. Louis down the Mississippi, to Memphis,
Vicksburg, and Natchez. On this trip she went as an unsalaried agent of
the Western Sanitary Commission--receiving only her expenses, and the
goods and provisions wherewith to relieve the want and misery she met
among our suffering men.
A few months' experience among the Union Refugees, and unprotected
fugitives, or unprotected Freedmen, convinced her that her best work for
all was in the lecturing field, in rousing the hearts of the multitude
to good deeds.
She had but one weak pair of hands, while her voice might set a hundred,
nay, a thousand pairs in motion, and believing that we err if we fail to
use our best powers for life's best uses, she again, after a few months
with the soldiers and other sufferers, entered the lecturing field in
the West, speaking almost nightly.
In the month of September, she was overturned in a carriage at
Galesburg, Illinois. Some bones were broken, and she was otherwise so
injured as to be entirely crippled for that year. She has since been
able to labor only occasionally, and in great weakness for the _cause_.
This expression she uses for all struggle against wrong. "Temperance,
Freedom, Justice to the negro, Justice to woman," she says, "are but
parts of one great whole, one mighty temple whose maker and builder is
God."
Through all the vicissitudes of the past; through all its years of
waiting, her faith in Him who led, and held, and comforted, has never
wavered, and to Him alone does she ascribe the Glory of our National
Redemption.
MRS. LUCY GAYLORD POMEROY.
In 1803, some families from Bristol and Meriden, Connecticut, removed to
the wilderness of New York, and settled in what is now Otisco, Onondaga
County. Among these were Chauncey Gaylord, a sturdy, athletic young man,
just arrived at the age of twenty-one, and "a little, quiet, black-eyed
girl, with a sunny, thoughtful face, only eleven years old." Her name
was Dema Cowles. So the young man and the little girl became
acquaintances, and friends, and in after years lovers. In 1817 they were
married. Their first home was of logs, containing one room, with a rude
loft abo
|