was loveliest and grandest in her character. In one of her
letters, written while at Belleville, she says:--

"I cannot grasp the idea of an Infinite Being; but, without perplexing
myself with questions which I cannot solve, everything around me
proclaims the presence and the government of an intelligent,
law-abiding Law-giver, and I believe implicitly in his power and his
love. But I must have the Friend of sinners to rest in."

And again: "In one sense, as Creator and Benefactor, I feel this
Infinite Being to be my Father, but I want a Jesus whom I can approach
as a fellow creature, yet who is so nearly allied to God that I can
look up to Him with reverence, and love Him and lie in His bosom."

And later, in a letter to Gerrit Smith, she says:--

"God is love, and whoso dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in
him. O friends, but for this faith, this anchor to the soul both sure
and steadfast, I know not what would have become of us in the sweep
which there has been of what we called the doctrines of Christianity
from our minds. They have passed away like the shadows of night, but
the glorious truth remains that the Lord of love and mercy reigns, and
great peace have they who do His will."

Their increasingly liberal views, and their growing indifference to
most of the established forms in religion, drew upon them the severe
censure of their Charleston relatives, and finally, when, about 1847,
it came to be known that they no longer considered the Sabbath in a
sacred light, their sister Eliza wrote to them that all personal
intercourse must end between them and her, and that her doors would be
forever closed against them. Angelina's answer, covering four full
pages of foolscap, was most affectionate; but, while she expressed her
sorrow at the feeling excited against them, she could not regret that
they had been brought from error to truth. She argued the point fully,
patiently giving all the best authorities concerning the substitution
of the Christian for the Jewish Sabbath, and against their sister's
assertion that the former was a divine institution.

"When I began to understand," she says, "what the gift of the Holy
Spirit really was, then all outwardisms fell off. I did not throw them
off through force of argument or example of others, but all reverence
for them died in my heart. I could not help it; it was unexpected to
me, and I wondered to find even the Sabbath gone. And now, to give to
God alone the