Thus, in all the inclement winter weather, through Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri, she pursued her labors of love, never omitting an evening when she could get an audience to address, speaking for Soldiers' Aid Societies, and giving the proceeds to those who worked only for the soldier,—then for Freedmen's Associations. She worked without fee or reward, asking only of those who were willing, to give enough to defray her expenses—for herself—thankful if she received, cheerful if she did not.
Following up this course till the summer days made lecturing seem impossible, she started from St. Louis down the Mississippi, to Memphis, Vicksburg, and Natchez. On this trip she went as an unsalaried agent of the Western Sanitary Commission—receiving only her expenses, and the goods and provisions wherewith to relieve the want and misery she met among our suffering men.
A few months' experience among the Union Refugees, and unprotected fugitives, or unprotected Freedmen, convinced her that her best work for all was in the lecturing field, in rousing the hearts of the multitude to good deeds.
She had but one weak pair of hands, while her voice might set a hundred, nay, a thousand pairs in motion, and believing that we err if we fail to use our best powers for life's best uses, she again, after a few months with the soldiers and other sufferers, entered the lecturing field in the West, speaking almost nightly.
In the month of September, she was overturned in a carriage at Galesburg, Illinois. Some bones were broken, and she was otherwise so injured as to be entirely crippled for that year. She has since been able to labor only occasionally, and in great weakness for the cause. This expression she uses for all struggle against wrong. "Temperance, Freedom, Justice to the negro, Justice to woman," she says, "are but parts of one great whole, one mighty temple whose maker and builder is God."
Through all the vicissitudes of the past; through all its years of waiting, her faith in Him who led, and held, and comforted, has never wavered, and to Him alone does she ascribe the Glory of our National Redemption.
MRS. LUCY GAYLORD POMEROY.
