ares which had so long weighed upon it. A domestic grief in the
shape of a paralytic shock to his faithful wife occurred in
December, 1863, compelling a change of home from the city to an
attractive suburban house in Roxbury, known as Rockledge.

Although his great life-work was finished, Mr. Garrison abated no
activity in the various reforms in which he had enlisted. Both with
voice and pen he reached a wider and more attentive public, pleading
for justice to the freedman, for the legal emancipation of women,
the right of the Chinese to free immigration and Christian
treatment, freedom of trade (for he early eschewed his youthful
belief in the protective system), and for kindred causes.

Visiting England for the fourth time in 1867, a public breakfast was
given in Mr. Garrison's honor at St. James's Hall, June 29th. John
Bright presided, and among the addresses of welcome were those of
Earl Russell, the Duke of Argyll, John Stuart Mill, George Thompson,
and W. Vernon Harcourt. Later the freedom of the city of Edinburgh
was conferred upon the American abolitionist, and in August he
attended the International Anti-Slavery Conference at Paris,
representing the American Freedman's Union Commission, and meeting
Laboulaye, Cochin, and other eminent Frenchmen.

The troubled period of reconstruction, involving the defence of the
freedmen's rights, found no more interested observer and participant
than Mr. Garrison. The former hostile treatment which had been meted
out to him by press and party was of the past, and, like Lincoln,

"He heard the hisses change to cheers,
The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise,
And took both in the same unwavering mood."

Unique among reformers, he received in life the reverence that
usually reveals itself in post-mortem honors which indicate the late
awakening of public consciousness and suggest the pathos of their
delay.

The felicities of domestic life were his in more than ordinary
measure, and "honor, love, obedience, troops of friends," made his
closing years as serene as his opening career had been stormy.
Occasional ailments reminded him of advancing age, but his
temperamental cheerfulness and faith in human progress never forsook
him.

The death of his dear wife, in 1876, was a visible blow to him, and
in the next year, for physical and mental recuperation, he visited
England again for the last time, with his son Francis, enjoying a
delightful reunion with old friend