"If everyone was so keen to Christianize the slaves, why weren't they taught to read the Bible for themselves?' -41
She proceeds to teach the slave children in her Sunday School class the alphabet song.
The Reverend comes... "'We do not sing in Colored Sunday School, and we most assuredly do not sing the alphabet. Are you aware that it is against the law to teach a slave to read?'"
"I knew of this law, thought vaguely, as if it had been stored in a root cellar in my head and suddenly dug up like some moldy yam. All right, it was the law, but it struck me as shameful. Surely he wouldn't claim this was God's will, too.
"He waited for me to answer, and when I didn't, he said, 'Would you put the church in contradiction of the law?'" -43
Words of Sarah's mother, Mrs. Grimke..."'Every girl comes into the world with varying degrees of ambition, even it if's only the hope of not belonging body and soul to her husband. I was a girl once, believe it or not. THe truth is that every girl must have ambition knocked out of ter for her own good. You are unusual only in your determination to fight what is inevitable. You resisted and so it came to this, to being broken like a horse. Sarah darling, you've faught harder than I imagined, but you must give yourself over to your duty and your fate and make whatever happiness you can.'" -81
Sarah's thought afterward, realizing Handful had overheard: "There's no pain on earth that doesn't crave a benevolent witness." -81
