Meantime Mrs. Stowe’s family were pursuing the even tenor of their way in the Walnut Hills suburb. Her husband was busied with Biblical exegeses, and she was giving her attention chiefly to pinafores and dishwashing; but each of them took the liveliest interest in what was going on. Mrs. Stowe’s brother Henry was one of the editors of the _Cincinnati Journal_ and he took a great part in the activities of the hour; Mrs. Stowe also did some writing for his paper. Yet all this is in the very midst of the period in her life when, as she afterward said, she was trying her best not to think of the workings of slavery at all, because she did not see what could be done about it and could not bear to think about a wrong that she could do nothing to prevent! Meantime the circle of friends about Mrs. Stowe must have thrashed out the whole subject, trying, as were many people elsewhere, to decide what was the right course to pursue. Good people felt that something ought to be done but were divided as to what was the wisest step to take first. There were extremists on both sides and many angry differences of opinion. Mrs. Stowe thought that no one could have the system of slavery brought home to him without an irrepressible desire to do something; but what was there to be done? For a time she, with many others, believed that the solution must lie in some intermediate position, in some scheme like the proposal of the Colonization Society to send the negroes back to Africa, or perhaps in some segregation plan. That a civil war could be the outcome of the disagreement was not imagined. Among the students in the Theological Seminary was a young enthusiast named Theodore Weld who, in a lecturing tour through the southern states, had seen much of slavery and slave owners, and who, as a result, held the strongest views against the system, which he did not hesitate to declare. He had converted to his views Mr. J. G. Birney, of Huntsville, Alabama, who then proceeded to free his slaves and become an ardent supporter of the doctrine. Together with Dr. Bailey of Cincinnati he founded a paper called _The Philanthropist_. His strong anti-slavery utterances in this paper aroused much question in that city in the summer and fall of 1836.