Besides this absorbing occupation, the sisters busied themselves that winter getting up a petition to Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and walked many miles, day after day, to obtain signatures, meeting with patience, humility, and sweetness the frequent rebuffs of the rude and the ignorant, feeling only pity for them, and gratitude to God who had touched and softened their own hearts and enlightened their minds.
They received repeated invitations from the different anti-slavery organizations to again enter the lecture field, and great disappointment was felt by all who had once listened to them that they should have retired from public work.
Sarah speaks of attending "meeting," as, from habit, she called it, and doubtless they all went regularly, as Mr. Weld was a communicant of the Presbyterian Church, and Mrs. Weld and Sarah were still sound on all the fundamental points of Christian doctrine. During some portion of every Sunday, Mrs. Weld was in the habit of visiting among the very poor, white and colored, and preaching to them the Gospel of peace and good will. In her peculiarly tender and persuasive way, she opened to those unhappy and benighted souls the promises and hopes which supported her, and lavished upon them the treasures of an eloquence that thousands had and would still have crowded to listen to. There were none to applaud in those sorrowful abodes, but her words of courage and consolation lifted many a despondent heart from the depths, while her own faith in the love and mercy of her heavenly Father brought confidence and comfort to many a benumbed and wavering soul.
In December, 1839, the happiness of the little household was increased by the birth of a son, who received the name of Charles Stuart, in loving remembrance of the eminent English philanthropist, with whom Mr. Weld had been as a brother, and whom he regarded as living as near the angels as mortal man could live. The advent of this child was not only an inexpressible blessing to the affectionate hearts of the father and mother, but to Sarah it seemed truly a mark of divine love to her, compensating her for the home ties and affections once so nearly within her grasp, and still often mourned for. She describes her feelings as she pressed the infant in her arms and folded him to her breast as a rhapsody of wild delight. "Oh, the ecstacy and the gratitude!" she exclaimed: "How I opened the little blanket and peeped in to gaze, with swimming eyes, at my treasure, and looked upon that face forever so dear!"
For months before the birth of her child, Mrs. Weld had read carefully different authors on the treatment of children, and felt herself prepared at every point with the best theories derived from Combes' "Physiological and Moral Management of Infancy," and kindred works. It is rather amusing to read how systematically this baby was trained, and how little he appreciated all the wise theories; how he protested against going to sleep by rule; how he wouldn't be bathed in cold water; how he was fed, a tablespoonful at a time, five times during the twenty-four hours,—at 8, 12, 4, 8, and 3 in the morning; how his fretting at last induced his Aunt Sarah to take the responsibility of giving him a little license with his bottle, when, horrified at his gluttony, she was, at the same time, convinced that the child had been slowly starving ever since his birth. Allowed more indulgence in food, he soon stopped fretting, and became a healthy, lively baby.
Angelina, writing to a friend, speaks of the blessed influence the child was exerting over them all. "The idea," she says, "of a baby exercising moral influence never came into my mind until I felt its power on my own heart. I used to think all a parent's reward for early care and anxiety was reaped in after-life, save the enjoyment of an infant as a pretty plaything. But the Lord has taught me differently, and woe be unto me if I do not profit by the instructions of this little teacher sent from God."
It was about this time that the injury referred to in the last chapter was received, which frustrated all Angelina's hopes and plans for continued public service for the slave, and condemned her, with all her rare intellectual gifts, to a quiet life. The sweet submission with which she bore this trial proved how great was the peace which possessed her soul, and kept her ready for whatever it seemed good for the Father to send her. Henceforth, shut out from the praises and plaudits of men, in her own home, among her neighbors and among the poor and afflicted, quietly and unobtrusively she fulfilled every law of love and duty. And though during the remainder of her life she was subject to frequent weakness and intense pain, all was borne with such fortitude and patience that only her husband and sister knew that she suffered.
In the latter part of February, 1840, Mr. Weld, having purchased a farm of fifty acres at Belleville, New Jersey, removed his family there. Angelina, announcing the change to Jane Smith, says:—
"Yes, we have left the sweet little village of Fort Lee, a spot never to be forgotten by me as the place where my Theodore and I first lived together, and the birthplace of my darling babe, the scene of my happiest days. There, too, my precious sister ministered with untiring faithfulness to my wants when sick, and there, too, I welcomed thee: for the first time under my roof."
To their new home they brought the simplicity of living to which they had adhered in their old one, a simplicity which, with their more commodious house, enabled them to exercise the broad hospitality which they had been obliged to deny themselves in a measure at Fort Lee. All the good deeds done under this sacred name of hospitality during their fourteen years' residence at Belleville can never be known. Few ever so diligently sought, or so cheerfully accepted, opportunities for the exercise of every good word and work. Scarcely a day passed that they did not feel called upon to make some sacrifice of comfort or convenience for the comfort or convenience of others; and more than once the sacrifice involved the risk of health and life. But in true humility and with an unwavering trust in God, they looked away from themselves and beyond ordinary considerations.