in regard to the awful
prevalence of drunkenness are constantly emanating from legislative
bodies down to various religious conventions, medical associations,
grand juries, etc., etc. But nothing has more clearly evinced the
strength of this excitement than the general interest taken in this
subject by the conductors of the press. From Maine to the Mississippi,
and as far as printing has penetrated--even among the Cherokee
Indians--but one sentiment seems to pervade the public papers, viz., the
necessity of strenuous exertion for the suppression of intemperance."
Such a demonstration of the tremendous power of a single righteous soul
for good, we may be sure, exerted upon Garrison lasting influences. What
a revelation it was also of the transcendent part which the press was
capable of playing in the revolution of popular sentiment upon moral
questions; and of the supreme service of organization as a factor in
reformatory movements. The seeds sowed were faith in the convictions of
one man against the opinions, the prejudices, and the practices of the
multitude; and knowledge of and skill in the use of the instruments by
which the individual conscience may be made to correct and renovate the
moral sense of a nation. But there was another seed corn dropped at this
time in his mind, and that is the immense utility of woman in the work
of regenerating society. She it is who feels even more than man the
effects of social vices and sins, and to her the moral reformer should
strenuously appeal for aid. And this, with the instinct of genius,
Garrison did in the temperance reform, nearly seventy years ago. His
editorials in the _Philanthropist_ in the year 1828 on "Female
Influence" may be said to be the _courier avant_ of the Woman's
Christian Temperance Union of to-day, as they were certainly the
precursors of the female anti-slavery societies of a few years later.

But now, without his knowing it, a stranger from a distant city entered
Boston with a message, which was to change the whole purpose of the
young editor's life. It was Benjamin Lundy, the indefatigable friend of
the Southern slave, the man who carried within his breast the whole
menagerie of Southern slavery. He was fresh from the city which held the
dust of Fanny Garrison, who had once written to her boy in Newburyport,
how the good God had cared for her in the person of a colored woman.
Yes, she had written: "The ladies are all kind to me, and I have a
colored wom