Daily globe., 1879-06-02

u
moter of the Colonization society.
He simply thought of doing as he would be
done by to a brave young man who had been
very imprudent from the best of motives. II
was not lmprudence, however, but the wise and
sagacious carrying out of a settled purpose and
this young man had good right to infer That
adhesion to principle, which had unlocked one
purse would unlock many others. He was
not at all discouraged or turned aside. His eff
forts at Baltimore had done two great things.
1t had inflicted on q New England slave trader
a punishment considerably more effective and
attention of by far the most liberal portion of
the Christian enterprises of the age-a man
who had given $50. 900 to the American Tract
society in single year.
BOSTON GREETING.
When he returned to Boston he met a little
knot of men and women, of various positions
in society, who greeted him with admi1a-
ton and stuck to him ever after.
Among them when Joshua Coffin. a Newbury-
port school-master, Isaac Knapp brother
printer, Ellis Gray Loring and Samuel E.
Sewall, prominent lawyers, Arnold Buf6n, a
Lynn halter, and probably John G.. Whittier,
than poet and David Lee Child, whig editor,
and more than all his wife, that grand and sub
lime woman, Lydia Maria Child. In company
with Knapp, without comforting with flesh or
blood or capitalists, he set up the imm mortal
Li6erator, furnishing copy for Knapp with his
scissors and setting his own editorials without
copy.
HIS GREATEST BLOW.
1t was early in 1882, think, that he struck
tho greatest blow of his life-or any mans
life-by publishing in thick pamphlet, with
all the emphasis that printer knows how to
give with types, "his thoughts on coloni-
o1~ 10
or miraculous, his Libcrator ed
itorials and this tremendous pamphlet,
were in point of English style, force of argu-
ment and dignity of tense, fully up to the
plane of the North american ReOieto. They
at once struck the thinking minds of the
country with wonderment and awe. Old poll
ticians OF both parties bit their lips, if they
did not gnash their teeth, and in the absence
of any other means of defense, invoked the
mob. 1t was in vain. The fire was kindled.
When such men as the Tappans, Abram Stew
art, Gerrit Smith, Gen. Fessenden, Theodore
Green, William Goodell, Joshua Leavitt,
Amos A. Phelps, dropped the Colonization
society, a moral victory was certain. Hun
dreds and thousands of men, who might never
agree with Mr.. Garrison in their mode of ac-
tion in behalf of the slave were thoroughly
aroused to act, each in his own way, and they
never ceased, and never will cease, to honor and
revere the man whose brave words dispelled
their day dreams.
MEETING HIM IN 1888.
My own acquaintance with Mr.. Garrison be-
gan personally in the spring of 1888 in Boston,
when was casually present at the May ami
versaries, when the New England anti-slavery
society was exceedingly small. I had already
become we'll acquainted with his Liberator and
Thoughts on Colonization. For man of definite
and earnest convictions he had in his personal
:,4 vh0 fro
the most perfect command of temper ever
saw You would not think it possible that he
could either hate or be hated. Possibly he may
have inspired some fanaticism in others. He
had not particle of it himself. His faults, if
he had any, grew out of his perfect identifca-
tion of himself with his cause. Those nearest
to him understood this, and gave him credit
| for utter self-sacri6ce, while those at great
er distance thought him egotistic. He had the
courage of his convictions and spared neither
friend nor foe when he thought fidelity to them
was at stake. Otherwise he could not have
been the man for such time. He may have
been, and doubtless often was, mistaken as to
methods and misjudged the motives
OF others. Such a man without such
cause Wth would We ss have eesn
full and victorious, as it seems certain no other
sort of man could have been. I knew him
long and intimately, both as man and a writer,
both in agreement and disagreement, and feel
bound to say never knew man more thor
oughly conscientious. And I believe no
social revolution for the better ever took place
among mankind unless such an individual, i'm
passible of suppressing his own
sense of right in Difference to
others, was at the bottom of it. The
| lesson of his life to me is, to beware of con-
demning any man who acts on his own private
| Judgment against great popular wrong. Men
| are reused to battle against old iniauities, not
| 1>xrt t1,ov of Arfn Snf mo II
by the notes of the trumpet. If ever hear
such note will either show that the world is
all right as it is, or fall into line.
HIS RELIGIOUS FAITH.
have said that Mr.. Garrison's religious
faith was that of the Calvinistic theology. II
was of the.Hopkinsonian type,in which the test
of conversion was that man should be willing
to be damned for the glory of God. But DR..
Hopkins was an abolltionist who regarded
slavery as sin per Sc, and several other men Of
his faith, as fer example, the veteran William
Goodell, who died editor of the Princtpld
were among the earliest abolitionists and sup
porters Of Garrison. Mr.. Garrison's movement
was a purely religious one. and continued 81
till the Shareholders rebelled. His personal re
:. ligious faith never failed or changed within
my knowledge, but it was tempered with q,
unfailing charity for the want of such faith il
others. He worked cordially with Unitarians
j
lists of the Calvinistic or orthodox faiths wer
far from welcoming the anti-slavery movemen
as religious. They seemed the more bite
, towards it on that account, and to think tina
> if Justice to the negro should be preached il
the churches the religious heavens would cel
tainly fall. So the churches were general
/ closed against all discussion of slavery fr:n
E 1888 onward for many years, in spite of tn
: fact that the leading abolitionists such a
: Garrison, Goodell, the Tappaus, William Jay
4 William Green. Gerrit Smith, Theodore .
' Wild, Joshua Leavitt, LIE Roy Sunderland
: Orange Scott, Charles B. Storrs, Berlah Greer
e Orson 8. Murray. Oliver johnson, Simeon S
/ Joclyn. James 6. Birney, Father Thursto
q and John Brown. were church members an
y religious men of the most pronounced chara
t ter. minister almost certainly, in the
.s years, lost caste and pulpit, if he even praye
10 for the slave. Many ministers thus thrust OF
of the pulpit became anti-slavery lecturer
Ia under the auspices of the antislavery societie
+ lecturing in public halls in the open air as t
b. mobs permitted. They were almost all vel
n RELIGIOUS as we'll as orthodox men. But VIII
ID is most worthy OF remark, is that the attitut
N of the churches in relation to Mr.. Garrison
n. movement set many of them thinking wheth
ly the dogmas at the foundation OF such
at Christianity could possibly be true. 1t W
On easy enough, by culling texts, to get warra
be for immediate abolition out Of the bible,
AS it was not easy to confute Moses Stewar
he argument in favor Of slavery out of the sar
book, accepting the. dogma that
scripture was given by the inspi
~; ton of God. Still more dltfic
- 49, was it to meet the pastoral letter" of
ef' Massachusetts, clergy, which shut Sarah 9
ere Angelina Grinke out of the churches, and
ian tain any respect for Paurs teaching on
ant sphere of woman in the church. So very la
in part of the abolitioni~ ~ts of that period came
the conclusion that if slave-holding and
in gagging of such women as Lucretia Mott, Ly
Gus Maria Child and 'tCaroIina's high-sor
18th daughters" was authorized by the bible
at much the worse for the bible. They bee,