Page:Women of distinction.djvu/97

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WOMEN OF DISTINCTION.
51

but being urged to invest it otherwise, she did so, losing all she had saved. Again she tried, but failing to accumulate on account of losses one way and another, she said, "The rich rob the poor and the poor rob each other." Upon deciding to leave New York on a lecturing tour through the East, she made ready a small bundle as her baggage and when about to leave informed her hostess that her name was no longer Isabella, but Sojourner. So she pursued her journey, speaking and lecturing to the people wherever she found them assembled. On one occasion, when at a camp-meeting, some young rowdies came in and broke up the meeting. It seemed as if a mob was threatened. She hid herself in one corner of the tent, but on thinking the matter over she said, "Shall I run away from the Devil—me, a servant of the living God? Have I not faith enough to go out and quell that mob, when it is written, 'One shall chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight'? I know there are not a thousand here, and I know I am a servant of the living God. I'll go to the rescue, and the Lord shall go with me and protect me." She drew herself a few rods to a little hill and began to sing:

It was early in the morning; it was early in the morning,
Just at the break of day,
When He rose, when He rose, when He rose,
And went to heaven on a cloud.

The rioters left the camp and came to hear her sing. She asked them why they surrounded her with such clubs in their hands. When told that they only wished to hear her sing, she made them pledge that if she would