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LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

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tion of woman, though they saw then in their course only their duty to the
slave. They had "fought the good fight" before I came into the ranks, but by
their unflinching testimony and unwavering courage, they had opened the
way and made it possible, if not easy, for other women to follow their
example.

It is memorable of them that their public advocacy of anti-slavery was
made the occasion of the issuing of a papal bull in the form of a "Pastoral
Letter," by the Evangelical clergy of Boston, in which the churches and all
God-fearing people were warned against their influence.

For solid, persistent, indefatigable work for the slave, Abby Kelley was
without rival. In the "History of Woman Suffrage," just published by Mrs.
Stanton, Miss Anthony, and Mrs. Joslyn Gage, there is this fitting tribute to
her: "Abby Kelley was the most untiring and most persecuted of all the
women who labored throughout the anti-slavery struggle. She traveled up
and down, alike in winter's cold and summer's heat, with scorn, ridicule,
violence, and mobs accompanying her, suffering all kinds of persecutions,
still speaking whenever and wherever she gained an audience,— in the open
air, in school-house, barn, depot, church, or public hall, on week-day or
Sunday, as she found opportunity." And, incredible as it will soon seem, if it
does not appear so already, "for listening to her on Sunday many men and
women were expelled from their churches."

When the abolitionists of Rhode Island were seeking to defeat the
restricted constitution of the Dorr party. already referred to in this volume,
Abby Kelley was more than once mobbed in the old Town Hall in the city of
Providence, and pelted with bad eggs.

And what can be said of the gifted authoress of "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
Harriet Beecher Stowe? Happy woman must she be, that to her was given
the power, in such unstinted measure, to touch and move the popular heart!
More than to reason or religion are we indebted to the influence which this
wonderful delineation of American chattel slavery produced on the public
mind.

Nor must I omit to name Sallie Holley, the daughter of the excellent
Myron Holley, who in her youth and beauty espoused the cause of the slave;
nor of Lucy Stone, and Antoinette Brown; for when the slave had few friends
and advocates they were noble enough to speak their best word in his
behalf.

Others there were, who, though they were not known on the platform,
were none the less earnest and effective for anti-slavery in their more retired
lives. There were many such to greet me, and welcome me to my newly