Page:From Anne Warren Weston to Boston Female Anti-slavery Society; Monday, August 21, 1837.pdf/1

 Boston. Aug 21. 1837.

Dear Friends

I am directed by the Board of the Boston Female A.S. Society to address you at this time for the purpose of assuring you that though the love of some of those who have been hither to esteemed as the firm supporters of the A.S. cause, seems to be waking cold, & though some who have put their hands to the plough seem to be looking back and though the hearts of many appear failing them for fear, yet it is not so with us. In times like these, it is highly desirable that all who hold the Abolition faith "undimmed & pure" should declare their ass(?)ie to others, that the efforts of those who seek to divide the cause of truth may be discouraged, & the hopes of those who seek to strengthen it confirmed & established such being our sustive(?), we do now in this moment of addressing you feel it to be our duty solemnly to renew our vows of consecration to the cause of the American Slave, "our countryman in chains" our brother fallen among thieves" & to declare that the inconsistency, the fear & the timidity of others only supplies to us a new & urgent motive for labouring with tenfold zeal & devotedness. It is not the want of zeal Abolitionists to rebuke others for the exhibition of too great warmth & fervour, we therefore trust you will bear with us, if in this epistle, we should seem to utter(?) the language of admonition, too freely or should appear to urge the adoption of our own views too warmly upon the minds of others.

As Abolitionists, we have all, I presume, been subjected in greater or less degrees to misrepresentation, contempt & persecution; by identifying ourselves in a measure with the oppressed & degraded we have been exposed to a portion of the sufferings that have been heaped upon them; but at the present period we are called upon to meet reproach, not as Abolitionists merely, but as women. So corrupting is the influence that a pro slavery spirit exerts both on the intellect & on the heart, that in (?)sentage of the word, in the city of Boston men are not wanting who declare that those women who petition for the abolition of slavery, who form themselves into Societies to produce this result and who on every suitable occasion impress their unfeigned condemnation of the sin of slaveholding and strive by facts & arguments to establish a position(?) con(?)tion in the minds of others one sinning against the dictates of womanly decorum & (?) propriety and rendering themselves obnoxious to the condemnation of the Apostle as expressed in the 13$th$ of the 5$th$ Chapter of Timothy. But this is not wonderful. The Theologians who justify from the Scriptures the enslaving of a certain portion of their fellow men because of their colour are the very people whom we might naturally expect to find perverting(?) the same sacred(?) oracles(?) in a manner almost