ation, but by an overpowering sense of duty, these gentle women,
fully realizing the singularity of their position, prepared to enter
upon entirely new scenes of labor, encompassed by difficulties
peculiarly trying to their delicate natures.

A series of public meetings was arranged for them as soon as the
Convention adjourned, and the first was held in Dorchester, in the town
hall, to which they repaired upon finding the number of those who
wished to hear them too great to be accommodated in a private house.
Their next was in Boston on the following afternoon. Angelina's heart
here almost failed her as she glanced over the assemblage of women of
all classes, and thought of the responsibility resting upon her. It was
at this meeting that a reverend gentleman set the example, which was
followed by two or three other men, of slyly sliding into a back seat
to hear for himself what manner of thing this woman's speaking was.
Satisfied of its superior quality, and alarmed at its effects upon the
audience, he shortly afterwards took great pains to prove that it was
unscriptural for a woman to speak in public.

As the meetings were held at first only in the daylight, there was
little show of opposition for some time. The sisters went from one town
to another, arousing enthusiasm everywhere, and vindicating, by their
power and success, their right to speak. Angelina's letters to Jane
Smith contain memoranda of all the meetings she and Sarah held during
that summer and fall. It is surprising that they were able to endure
such an amount of mental and physical labor, and maintain the
constantly increasing eagerness to hear them. Before the end of the
first week, she records:--"Nearly thirty men present, pretty easy to
speak." A few days later the number of men had increased to fifty, with
"great openness on their part to hear."

After having held meetings every day, their audience numbering from one
hundred and fifty to one thousand, Angelina records on the 21st July,
at Lynn:--

"In the evening of the same day addressed our first mixed audience.
Over one thousand present, great openness to hear, and ease in
speaking."

This, so briefly mentioned, was the beginning of the revolution in
sentiment respecting woman's sphere, which, though it was met at the
outset with much the same spirit which opposed abolitionism, soon
spread and became a principle of reform as conscientiously and as ably
advocated as any other, moral or polit