o what I can to persuade others," she said, returning the
pressure.

Through the night Berinthia was thinking over what she had started to
accomplish, and what arguments she should use to influence those whom
she would ask to sign the agreement. The great idea, with a moral
principle behind it, took possession of her mind and drove sleep from
her eyes and aroused the energies of the soul. Why undertake the
arduous task alone? Why not ask Doctor Cooper to preach about it? If
she could but get the ministers enlisted, they could awaken public
sentiment.

"Ah! I have it. Week after next is Thanksgiving, and I will get them
to preach sermons that will stir up the people," she said to herself.

Thanksgiving Day came. Very eloquent were the words spoken for
Justice, Right, and Liberty by Reverend Doctor Cooper, Reverend Doctor
Eliot, Reverend Doctor Checkley, and nearly all the other ministers,
excepting Reverend Mr. Coner, rector of King's Chapel, and Reverend
Mather Byles of Christ Church, whose sympathies were with the
king.[32]

[Footnote 32: Reverend Andrew Eliot was pastor of the New North
Church, an edifice still standing at the corner of Hanover and Clark
streets, and used by the Roman Catholics. Reverend Samuel Checkley was
pastor of the New South Church, and Reverend Samuel Blair of the Old
South. These pastors were outspoken in denunciation of the offensive
measures of the king and his ministers.]

In every household fathers and mothers, sons and daughters and
grandchildren, gathered in the old home, and had a great deal to say,
while partaking of the roast turkey and plum-pudding, of the sermons
they had heard in the different meetinghouses. All the ministers
preached about the proposal of Parliament to levy a tax upon tea, and
that if it could not be defeated in any other way it was the patriotic
duty of the people to quit using the herb. They must deny themselves
the luxury, that they might maintain their freedom. Little did they
know that a blue-eyed girl had called upon Doctor Cooper and read to
him what she had written, an agreement to drink no more tea; how his
soul had been set on fire and he had gone with her to the houses of
other ministers, that they might look into her eyes and see the
flashing of a resolute spirit in behalf of justice, righteousness, and
liberty.

Although the snow was deep in the streets, the drifts did not deter
Berinthia from calling upon her friends. Many of the good ladies