with those whose ideas of marriage, as evinced in their conversation
respecting Miss King and myself, never ascended beyond the region of the
material into that of the high, the holy and the spiritual. Of all the
families of Fulton and Phillipsville, this was the only one which
_publicly_ spoke approval of our course. So that, therefore it will be
expected, that while those true hearts were friendly to us, they were
equally with ourselves targets at which our enemies might shoot.

I have introduced Mr. and Mrs. Porter at this point, because, at this
point, their services to us commenced. But for these faithful friends,
Miss King would not have known whither to have fled when she found as
she did, her own home becoming any other than a desirable habitation,
owing to the growing opposition and bitter revilings of her step-mother,
and the impertinent intermeddlings of others.

Thus far the opposition which Miss King had experienced, though
disagreeable, had not become too much for the "utmost limit of human
patience." Soon, however, a crisis occurred, in the arrival in Fulton,
of the Rev. John B. King. This gentleman's visit was unexpected, and it
is due to him to say, that he did not come on any errand connected with
this subject; for until he arrived in Fulton, he did not know of the
correspondence which had existed between his sister and myself. Though
unexpected, his visit as already intimated, was fraught with results,
which in their immediate influence, were extremely sad and woeful.

Mr. King was a Reform preacher, and had even come from Washington,
District of Columbia, where he had been residing for the last two years,
to collect money to build a church which should exclude from membership
those who held their fellow-men in bondage, and who would not admit the
doctrines of the human brotherhood. Just the man to assist us, one would