“Under all these circumstances,” Angelina writes, “I felt a little like the apostle Paul, who having first offered the Jews the gospel, and finding they would not receive it, believed it right for him to turn to the Gentiles.  Didst thou ever hear anything so absurd as what Catherine says about the certificate and a companion?  I cannot feel bound by such unreasonable restrictions if my Heavenly Father opens a door for me, and I do not mean to submit to them.  She knows very well that Arch Street Meeting would grant me neither, but as the servant of Jesus Christ I have no right to bow down thus to the authority of man, and I do not expect ever again to suffer myself to be trammelled as I have been.  It is sinful in any human being to resign his or her conscience and free agency to any society or individual, if such usurpation can be resisted by moral power.  The course our Society is now determined upon, of crushing everything which opposes the peculiar views of Friends, seems to me just like the powerful effort of the Jews to close the lips of Jesus.  They are afraid that the Society will be completely broken up if they allow any difference of opinion to pass unrebuked, and they are resolved to put down all who question in any way the doctrines of Barclay, the soundness of Fox, or the practices which are built on them.  But the time is fast approaching when we shall see who is for Christ, and who for Fox and Barclay, the Paul and Apollos of our Society.”

Her plan of going to New England frustrated, Angelina hesitated no longer about accepting the invitation from New York.  But first there was a long discussion of the subject with Sarah, who found it hard to resign her sister to a work she as yet did not cordially approve.  She begged her not to decide suddenly, and pointed out all sorts of difficulties—­the great responsibility she would assume, her retiring disposition, and almost morbid shrinking from whatever might make her conspicuous; the trial of going among strangers, made greater by her Quaker costume and speech, and lastly, of the almost universal prejudice against a woman’s speaking to any audience; and she asked her if, under all these embarrassing circumstances, added to her inexperience of the world, she did not feel that she would ultimately be forced to give up what now seemed to her so practicable.  To all this Angelina only answered that the responsibility seemed thrust upon her, that the call was God’s call, and she could not refuse to answer it.  Sarah then told her that if she should go upon this mission without the sanction of the “Meeting for Sufferings,” it would be regarded as a violation of the established usages of the Society, and it would feel obliged to disown her.  Angelina’s answer to this ended the discussion.  She declared that as her mind was made up to go, she could not ask leave of her Society—­that it would grieve her to have to leave it, and it would be unpleasant to be disowned, but she had no alternative.  Then