Ask the Scholar

Sarah Moore Grimké describes Angelina Emily Grimké's health: "She has been reduced to great weakness by the fever, but that is now entirely subdued & I think she is recruiting as fast as I could reasonably expect." The Grimké sisters do not contemplate being withdrawn from the anti-slavery cause even though they cannot lecture this winter. Sarah M. Grimké feels that her vital energies are greatly taxed by speaking and her throat is frequently sore. She hopes that Angelina will be allowed by her friends to recover entirely before she is asked to lecture again. The Grimké sisters hope to be excused from writing "in the Album," as they "feel an objection to writing in a book that is to be sold." Sarah M. Grimké mourns "that brother Lovejoy died in the transgression of Christs command 'Resist not evil' in defiance of that injunction 'Though shall not kill.' I see no difference between his guilt & that of the slaveholders." She elaborates further on this principle, i.e. of the meek and Christlike submission to the forces of evil. She believes that "the pouring out of his [Lovejoy's] blood my dear sister will probably make abolitionists, but it will not make Christian abolitionists." She fears there will be a thirst for more bloodshed. Sarah M. Grimké comments: "We have called in the aid of Satan & the Prince of Peace can have no communion with the power of darkness."