me _personally_ acquainted with me; for,
as I am a great stumbling-block in the way of the people, or, rather, of
some people, it would be somewhat disastrous to our cause if any of our
agents, through the influence of popular sentiment, should be led to
cherish prejudices against me."

In February, 1837, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society came to the
rescue of the _Liberator_ from its financial embarrassments and
hand-to-mouth existence by assuming the responsibility of its
publication. The arrangement did not in any respect compromise Mr.
Garrison's editorial independence, but lifted from him and his friend
Knapp in his own language, "a heavy burden, which has long crushed us to
the earth." The arrangement, nevertheless, continued but a year when it
was voluntarily set aside by Mr. Garrison for causes of which we must
now give an account.

In the letter from which we have quoted above, touching his visit to the
Convention of Anti-Slavery Agents, Garrison alludes to one of these
causes. He says: "I was most kindly received by all, and treated as a
brother, notwithstanding the wide difference of opinion between us on
some religious points, _especially the Sabbath question_." The italics
are our own. Until within a few years he had been one of the strictest
of Sabbath observers. Although never formally connected with any church,
he had been a narrow and even an intolerant believer in the creed and
observances of New England orthodoxy. Words failed him in 1828 to
express his abhorrence of a meeting of professed infidels: "It is
impossible," he exclaimed with the ardor of a bigot, "to estimate the
depravity and wickedness of those who, at the present day, reject the
Gospel of Jesus Christ," etc. A year and a half later while editing the
_Genius_ in Baltimore, he held uncompromisingly to the stern Sabbatical
notions of the Puritans. A fete given to Lafayette in France on Sunday
seemed to him an act of sheer religious desecration. The carrying of
passengers and the mails on the Sabbath provoked his energetic
reprobation. He was in all points of New England Puritanism, orthodox of
the orthodox.

Subsequently he began to see things in a different light. As the area of
his experience extended it came to him that living was more than
believing, that it was not every one who professed faith in Jesus had
love for him in the heart; and that there were many whom his own
illiberalism had rated as depraved and wicked on mere po