Garrison was
present, and treasured up in his heart the words of his friend. He did
not forget how Lundy had pressed upon his hearers the importance of
petitioning Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia, as we shall see further on. But poor Lundy was unfortunate
with the ministers. He got this time not the cold shoulder alone but a
clerical slap in the face as well. He had just sat down when the pastor
of the church, Rev. Howard Malcolm, uprose in wrath and inveighed
against any intermeddling of the North with slavery, and brought the
meeting with a high hand to a close. This incident was the first
collision with the church of the forlorn hope of the Abolition movement.
Trained as Garrison was in the orthodox creed and sound in that creed
almost to bigotry, this behavior of a standard-bearer of the church,
together with the apathy displayed by the clergy on a former occasion,
caused probably the first "little rift within the lute" of his creed,
"that by and by will make the music mute, and, ever widening, slowly
silence all." For in religion as in love, "Unfaith in aught is want of
faith in all." The Rev. Howard Malcolm's arbitrary proceeding had
prevented the organization of an anti-slavery committee. But this was
affected at a second meeting of the friends of the slave. Garrison was
one of the twenty gentlemen who were appointed such a committee. His
zeal and energy far exceeded the zeal and energy of the remaining
nineteen. He did not need the earnest exhortation of Lundy to impress
upon his memory the importance of "activity and steady perseverance." He
perceived almost at once that everything depended on them. And so he had
formed plans for a vigorous campaign against the existence of slavery in
the District of Columbia. But before he was ready to set out along the
line of work, which he had laid down for Massachusetts, the scene of his
labors shifted to Bennington, Vermont. Before he left Boston, Lundy had
recognized him as "a valuable coadjutor." The relationship between the
two men was becoming beautifully close. The more Lundy saw of Garrison,
the more he must have seemed to him a man after his own heart. And so no
wonder that he was solicitous of fastening him to his cause with hooks
of steel. The older had written the younger reformer a letter almost
paternal in tone--he must do thus and thus, he must not be disappointed
if he finds the heavy end of the burthen borne by himself, while