They agitated the very atmosphere with their magical faith in the new dispensation; they breathed the spirit of their own beautiful enthusiasm into their neighborhoods; they met the first brunt of persecution and conquered it by their zeal; they transformed unbelief into belief by their personal testimonies, which aroused curiosity, or made their relatives and neighbors sleepless with active thoughts of the new, and inspired doubts of the old; they enticed the people to hear their elders preach, and did more to disturb the peace of the town than could have done the town-crier; they crowded their halls with an audience when without their sisterly devising those halls had remained often empty and cold.
— from The Women of Mormondom by Edward W. (Edward William) Tullidge

It is desirable that auxiliary societies should be established, in order to call into exercise, and direct into proper channels, the spirit of philanthropy that abounds in our State, and to give object and employment to that self-denying devotion which marks the character of woman, and is found in a class of men that rarely are named with public benefactors, though they are found,
— from The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (New Series, No. 3, January 1864) by Pennsylvania Prison Society