had felt the power of her oratory in those early times.
Says Wendell Phillips: "I well remember evening after evening
listening to eloquence such as never then had been heard from a woman.
She swept the chords of the human heart with a power that has never
been surpassed and rarely equalled."

Mr. Lincoln, in whose pulpit she lectured in Gardiner, says: "Never
before or since have I seen an audience so held and so moved by any
public speaker, man or woman; and never before or since have I seen a
Christian pulpit so well filled, nor in the pews seen such absorbed
hearers."

Robert F. Walcutt testifies in the same manner. "Angelina," he says,
"possessed a rare gift of eloquence, a calm power of persuasion, a
magnetic influence over those who listened to her, which carried
conviction to hearts that nothing before had reached. I shall never
forget the wonderful manifestation of this power during six successive
evenings, in what was then called the Odeon. It was the old Boston
Theatre, which had been converted into a music hall; the four
galleries rising above the auditorium all crowded with a silent
audience carried away with the calm, simple eloquence which narrated
what she and her sister had seen from their earliest days. And yet
this Odeon scene, the audience so quiet and intensely absorbed,
occurred at the most enflamed period of the anti-slavery contest. The
effective agent in this phenomenon was Angelina's serene, commanding
eloquence, a wonderful gift, which enchained attention, disarmed
prejudice, and carried her hearers with her."

Another, who often heard her, speaks of the gentle, firm, and
impressive voice which could ring out in clarion tones when speaking
in the name of the Lord to let the oppressed go free.

Many travelled long distances to hear her. Mechanics left their shops,
and laborers came in out of the field, and sat almost motionless
throughout her meetings, showing impatience only when the lecture was
over and they could hear no more. Sarah's speaking, though fully as
earnest, was not nearly so effective as Angelina's. She was never very
fluent, and cared little for the flowers of rhetoric. She could state
a truth in clear and forcible terms, but the language was unvarnished,
sometimes harsh, while the manner of speaking was often embarrassed.
She understood and felt her deficiencies, and preferred to serve the
cause through her pen rather than through her voice. Writing to Sarah
Douglass, in