But darker days were coming, when there was to be but little thought of marrying and giving in marriage; and already the shadow of those days was felt by womanhood throughout our land. If the women did not as yet feel the actual presence of the storm, they saw their husbands and brothers and fathers go heavily for the fear of the days to come, and they saw the land becoming divided into two hostile camps. The time was fast nearing when the women of the country would be called upon to show that they knew as well as any man of them all the meaning of patriotism, when they would become the very nerves, as the men were the sinews, of the land in its distress. Darker grew the days and more serious became the bearing of the women as well as the men. Nor would the former be excluded from the counsels of their country; though they might not take place in the public meetings, they inspired the thoughts of the men who there poured forth a flood of patriotism that could not be stayed. It was the gaze of his wife, as she sat in an 'agony of suspense among the audience, that roused Patrick Henry to the splendid effort that lost the "Parsons" their case and gave him that fame which culminated in the House of Burgesses when there was question between patriotism and prudence; and doubtless it was the home council that sent him forth to do his duty that day and kindle the fire that was to sweep over the land until British misrule had been "burnt and purged away." That is speculation, not history; but we know by record the spirit of the women when there came the days of proof.
Before, however, embarking upon the subject of the women of the Revolution proper, there may be described the personalities of two remarkable women who flourished during the period which is being considered, but whose lives were spent in the conflict of religious discussion and not that of arms. For some reason,--possibly because of national liberty of opinions and speech,--America has always been preeminently the nursery of the female religious fanatic. The eighteenth century, in its latter half, gave to the world two remarkable examples of the female apostle; and though but few vital memories of either survive, yet these women are worthy of place in this record for their singular, though limited and temporary, influence, and for the resemblance in certain ways, at least of one of them, to one of the most prominent feminine leaders in our own day.