Page:Pioneer work in opening the medical profession to women - autobiographical sketches (IA b28145227).pdf/25

 life furnished delightful experiences to the younger travellers.

The following six years were spent in New York and its suburb, Jersey City, across the bay.

As daily pupil in an excellent school in New York, entering ardently into the anti-slavery struggle, attending meetings and societies, the years passed rapidly away. Our brothers being younger than the three elder sisters, habits of unconscious independence amongst the sisters were formed, which became a matter of course.

Often in returning home from some evening meeting in New York the hourly ferry-boat would be missed, and we have crossed by the eleven or twelve o'clock boat, with no sense of risk or experience of annoyance.

We became acquainted with William Lloyd Garrison and other noble leaders in the long and arduous anti-slavery struggle. Garrison was a welcome guest in our home. He was very fond of children, and would delight them with long repetitions of Russian poetry.

But fierce antagonisms were already aroused by this bitter struggle; and on one occasion the Rev. Samuel H. Cox, a well-known Presbyterian clergyman, and his family, sought refuge at our country house. This gentleman had stated in the pulpit that the Lord Jesus belonged to a race with darker skins than ours. At once the rumour went abroad that 'Dr. Cox had called Jesus Christ a nigger,' and it was resolved forthwith to lynch him! So he came