lapse of
years, come to be inspected (when, mayhap, its present covering should
be destroyed by time and service), they will excite some curiosity in
those who will behold the strange assemblage of handsome lace veils,
flounces, and trimmings, and caps, this may inform them that in the
winter of 1827-8, Sarah M. Grimke, being on a visit to her friends in
Charleston, undertook the economical task of making a rag carpet, and
with the shreds thereof concluded to stuff this cushion. Having made
known her intention, she solicited contributions from all the family,
which they furnished liberally, and several of them having relinquished
the vanities of the world to seek a better inheritance, they threw into
the treasury much which they had once used to decorate the poor
tabernacle of clay. Now it happened that on the 10th day of the first
month that, sitting at her work and industriously cutting her scraps,
her well-beloved sister Angelina proposed adding to the collection for
the cushion two handsome lace veils, a lace flounce, and other laces,
etc., which were accepted, and are accordingly in this medley. This has
been done under feelings of duty, believing that, as we are called with
a high and holy calling, and forbidden to adorn these bodies, but to
wear the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, as we have ourselves laid
aside these superfluities of naughtiness, so we should not in any
measure contribute to the destroying of others, knowing that we shall
be called to give an account of the deeds done in the body."

This was at least consistent, and in this light cannot be condemned.
From that time Angelina kept up this kind of sacrifices, which were
gladly made, and for which she seems to have found ample compensation
in her satisfied sense of duty.

One day she records: "I have just untrimmed my hat, and have put
nothing but a band of ribbon around it, and taken the lace out of the
inside. I do want, if I _am_ a Christian, to look like one. I think
that professors of religion ought so to dress that wherever they are
seen all around may feel they are _condemning_ the world and all its
trifling vanities."

A little later, she writes: "My attention has lately been called to the
duty of Christians dressing _quite_ plain. When I was first brought to
the feet of Jesus, I learned this lesson in part, but I soon forgot
much of it. Now I find my views stricter and clearer than they ever
were. The first thing I gave up was a ca