vestry rooms of that period. It shows also how partial are the philosophic illuminations of men. Dr. Channing disbelieved in the principle of association. It was one of the points in his disapproval of the Anti-slavery people that they worked through associations; for he had a philosophic disbelief in the theory of association. I share this disbelief with Dr. Channing; the miserable squabbles between Anti-slavery associations in which the reformers wasted their force and impaired their tempers, show very clearly the dangers inherent in association, which dangers Channing very clearly saw. Yet Channing was himself the servant of an association; and every fault in his relation to the great moral question of his time may be traced to that fact.

Association,- business or social, literary or artistic, religious or scientific,- all association is opposed to any disrupting idea. The merchants and lawyers of Boston fled Abolition as a plague; they regarded Abolition as an enemy to be fought with all weapGarrison was once taken to hear Dr. Channing by an acquaintance of both parties, and he sat in a pew which belonged to a conservative family, but which that family had been in the habit of throwing open to others.

ons.

On the Tuesday following this apparition of Garrison in the sacred pew, the future use of it was withdrawn by a stiff note from the conservative family. The reason for this excess of caution was that the South disciplined Northern merchants by a withdrawal of business; and the South kept its eyes open. A rumor that Garrison had been seen in a particular pew might make the pewowner a marked man for commercial punishment. "Mr. May," said a New York merchant of the first rank to the reformer, whom he summoned to an interview during the progress of an Anti-slavery meeting, “Mr. May, we are not such fools as not to know that slavery is a great evil; a great wrong. But it was consented to by the founders of our Republic. It was provided for in the Constitution of our Union. A great portion of the property of the Southerners is invested under its sanction; and the business of the North, as well as the South, has become adjusted to it. There are millions upon millions of dollars due from Southerners to the merchants and mechanics of this city alone, the payment of which would be jeopardized by any rupture between the North and the South. We cannot afford, sir, to let you and your associates succeed

in your endeavor to overthrow slavery. It is not a matter of principle with us. It is a matter of business necessity. We cannot afford to let you succeed. And I have called you out to let you know, and to let your fellow-laborers know, that we do not mean to allow you to succeed. We mean, sir," said he, with increased emphasis,-"we mean, sir, to put you Abolitionists down,- by fair means if we can, by foul means if we must."

Truly the world was not very different then from what it is to-day. If a man takes a stand against any business interest, however iniquitous, that interest will strike at him on the following day.

III

THE FIGURE

THE essential quality of all this old society was that it was cold. In the last analysis,— after the historical and constitutional questions have been patiently analyzed, after economics and sociology have had their say,the trouble with the American of 1830 was that he had a cold heart. Cruelty, lust, business interest, remoteness from European influence had led to the establishment of an unfeeling civilization. The essential quality of Garrison is that he is hot. This must be borne in mind at every moment as the chief and real quality of Garrison. Disregard the arguments; sink every intellectual conception, every bit of logic and of analysis, and look upon the age;-you see a cold age. Look upon Garrison:- you see a hot coal of fire. He plunges through the icy atmosphere like a burning meteorite from another planet.

There is a second contrast. The age was conciliatory: Garrison is aggressive. These

two forms of the contrast between Garrison and his age lie close together and merge into each other: yet they are not entirely identical: the first concerns the emotions, the second, the intellect. Conciliation was the sin of that age. Now this anti-type, this personified enemy of his age,- Garrison,must in his nature be self-reliant, self-assertive, self-sufficient. He relates himself to no precedent. He strikes out from his inner thought. He is even swords-drawn with his own thought of yesterday. When he changes his mind he asks God to forgive him for ever having thought otherwise. His instinct is so thoroughly opposed to any authority except the inner light of conscience, that he makes that conscience,- his local, momentary conscience,— into a column of smoke sent by the Lord. Not Bunyan, not Luther is greater than Garrison on this side of his nature. He is not an intellectual perHe is not a highly educated man. But he is a Will of the first magnitude, a will made perfect, because almost entirely unconscious, almost entirely dedicated and subdued to its mission.

son.

I quote here the whole of the first editorial of The Liberator (January 1st, 1831), because the whole of Garrison is in it, In