d though he had withdrawn from the church with which they
were in common connected, and that on grounds which subjected him to the
imputation and penalties af heresy, these good people did not feel
called upon to change their relations of personal friendship, nor did
they make it a pretext, as others have done, for abandoning the cause."

In October, 1836, he accepted a lecturing agency under the American
Anti-slavery Society, as one of the "seventy," gathered from all
professions, whom Theodore D. Weld had by his eloquence inspired to
spread the gospel of emancipation. Mr. McKim had long before this had
his attention drawn to the subject of slavery, in the summer of 1832;
and the reading of Garrison's "Thoughts on Colonization," at once made
him an abolitionist. He was an appointed delegate to the Convention
which formed the American Anti-slavery Society, and enjoyed the
distinction of being the youngest member of that body.[A] Henceforth the
object of the society, and of his ministry became inseparable in his
mind.

[Footnote A: It may be a matter of some interest to state that the
original draft of the Declaration of Sentiments adopted at this meeting,
together with the autographs of the signers, is now in the keeping of
the New York Historical Society.]

In the following summer, 1834, he delivered in Carlisle two addresses in
favor of immediate emancipation, which excited much discussion and
bitter feeling in that border community, and gained him no little
obloquy, which was of course increased when, as a lecturer, on the
regular stipend of eight dollars a week and travelling expenses,
("pocket lined with British gold" was the current charge), he traversed
his native state, among a people in the closest geographical,
commercial, and social contact with the system of slavery. His fate was
not different from that of his colleagues, in respect of interruptions
of his meetings by mob violence, personal assaults with stale eggs and
other more dangerous missiles, and a public sentiment which everywhere
encouraged and protected the rioters.

Meantime, a radical change of opinion on theological questions, led Mr.
McKim formally to sever his connection with the Presbyterian Church, and
ministry. Being now free to act without sectarian constraint, he was, in
the beginning of 1840, made Publishing Agent of the Pennsylvania
Anti-slavery Society, which caused him to settle in Philadelphia, where
he was married, in October, t