Caroline Healey Dall's Diary Wednesday, May 30, 1849 - I went with Charles this morning to the Prayer
Meeting at Mr. Clarke's Chapel....I had intended to make several calls, but on
coming out, I found it raining heavily, and under the shelter of Aunt Ann's
umbrella I went down to the meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society where I staid
all the morning, through the heavy storm. I was glad I went, for I heard
fine speaking from Wendell Phillips - Foster and his wife, Frederick Douglass,
and Remond. In this speaking, there was nothing fanatical, nothing severe
- It was creditable to the Christianity of the speakers. Douglass in
eloquence -argument, and force of will, a much neglected part of public speaking
far surpassed them all...
Caroline Healey Dall's Diary Thursday, May 31, 1849 - I sewed and
taught Willie until it was time to attend the Anti-Slavery meeting. It was
intensely exciting and chiefly because after Stephen Foster made one of his most
disagreeable and repulsive speeches, Douglass rose, and vindicated his own
Christianity, and that of true reform, in one of the finest that every fell from
the lips of man. God bless Frederick Douglass! God bless him - and
his cause, so prayed I while he spoke so pray I now. During the violent
address of Foster, too weak in soul & body to rise myself - I was inwardly
praying that God would raise up an apostle to speak against such folly. He
was followed by Charles Burleigh in a noble speech - but one of those quite
likely to be misinterpreted. I prayed again with a broken spirit - for I
felt that this was not what was needed but after Douglass had risen I sang - and
my song was an anthem of praise. I could not restrain my enthusiasm, he
seemed to me while he spoke, greater than any man to whom I had ever listened,
and the moment the meeting had closed. I went upon the stage and thanked
him in person. What would father have said, had w seen me then? No
matter -. God knows I was in the way of my duty, and with an undivided
heart, I asked no questions then. May I never in the future...
