LOOM AND SPINDLE OR Life Among the Early Mill Girls WITH A ...

Voted, that we withdraw our fellowship from the said Miss Hanson until she shall give
satisfactory evidence of repentance."
And thus, at seventeen years of age, I was excommunicated from the church of my
ancestors, and for no fault, no sin, no crime, but simply because I could not subscribe
conscientiously to doctrines which I did not comprehend. I relate this phase of my
youthful experience here in detail, because it serves to show the methods which were
then in use to cast out or dispose of those members who could not subscribe to the
doctrines of the dominant church of New England.
For some time after this, I was quite in disgrace with some of my work-mates, and was
called a "heretic" and a "child of perdition" by my church friends. But, as I did not agree,
even in this, with their opinions, but went my "ain gait," it followed that, although I
remained for a time something of a heretic, I was not an unbeliever in sacred things nor
did I prove to be a "child of perdition." But this experience made me very unhappy, and
gave me a distaste for religious reading and thinking, and for many years the Bible was a
sealed book to me, until I came to see in the Book, not the letter of dogma, but rather the
spirit of truth and of revelation. This experience also repressed the humorous side of my
nature, which is every one's birthright, and made me for a time a sort of youthful cynic;
and I allowed myself to feel a certain contempt for those of my work-mates who, though
they could not give clear reason for their belief, still remained faithful to their "covenant."
There were two or three little incidents connected with this episode in my life that may be
of interest. A little later, when I thought of applying for the position of teaching in a
public school, I was advised by a well-meaning friend not to attempt it, "for," the friend
added, "you will not succeed, for how can a Universalist pray in her school?"
Several years after my excommunication, when I had come to observe that religion and
"mere morality" do not always go together, I had a final interview with one of the
deacons who had labored with me. He was an overseer in the room where I worked, and I
had noticed his familiar manner with some of the girls, who did not like it any better than
I did; and one day, when his behavior was unusually offensive, I determined to speak to
him about it.
I called him to my drawing-in frame, where I was sitting at work, and said to him
something like this: "I have hard work to believe that you are one of those deacons who
came to labor with a young girl about belonging to your church. I don't think you set the
example of good works you then preached to me." He gave me a look, but did not
answer; and shortly after, as I might have expected, I received an "honorable discharge"
from his room.
But let me acknowledge one far-reaching benefit that resulted from my being admitted to
the Orthodox church, a benefit which came to me in the summer of 1895. Because of my
baptism, administered so long ago, I was enabled to officiate as god-mother to my
grandchild and namesake, in Pueblo, Colorado,–one among the first of the little girls born
on a political equality with the little boys of that enlightened State, born, as one may say,