of her history.

"Do!" shrieked the woman, "your duty--that which every human creature,
man or woman, is bound before high heaven to do. Aid in the great work
which God this day calls upon his Israel to do--to redeem his people
from captivity and from the hand of those who smite us."

"My good woman," said Virginia, who now began to understand the
character of the strange intruder, "it is not for me, may I add, it is
not for our sex to mingle in contests like the present. We can but
humbly pray that He who controls the affairs of this world, may direct
in virtue and in wisdom, the hearts of both rulers and people."

"And why should we only pray," said the woman sternly, "when did Heaven
ever answer prayer, except when our own actions carried the prayer into
effect. Have you not learned, have you not known, hath it not been told
you from the foundation of the world, that faith without works was
dead."

"But there is no part which a woman can consistently take in such a
contest as the present, even should she so far forget her true duties as
to wish to engage in it."

"Girl, have you read your bible, or are you one of those children of the
scarlet woman of Babylon, to whom the word of God is a closed book--to
whom the waters from the fountain of truth can only come through the
polluted lips of priests--as unclean birds feed their offspring. Do you
not know that it was a woman, even Rahab, who saved the spies sent out
from Shittem to view the land of promise? Do you not know that Miriam
joined with the hosts of Israel in the triumph of their deliverance from
the hand of Pharaoh? Do you not know that Deborah, the wife of Lapidoth,
judged Israel, and delivered Jacob from the hands of Jabin, king of
Canaan, and Sisera the captain of his host--and did not Jael, the wife
of Heber the Kenite, rescue Israel from the hands of Sisera? Surely she
fastened the nail in a sure place, and the wife of Sisera, tarried long
ere his chariot should come--and shall we in these latter days of Israel
be less bold than they? Tell me not of prayers, Virginia Temple, cowards
alone pray blindly for assistance. It is the will of God that the brave
should be often under Heaven, the answerers of their own prayers."

"And pray tell me," said Virginia, struck with the wild, biblical
eloquence of the Puritan woman, "why you have thus come to me among so
many of the damsels of Virginia, to urge me to engage in this
enterprise."

"Because I was se