Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 2

‘ [110] make some fluttering in certain quarters, especially my remarks upon the sanctity of the Sabbath’; on the 18th¹ he reports to the same that further censure had been visited upon him, as he had anticipated; and on the 21st, that there was still no end of it:

The only thing that I regret is, the insertion of a ² communication by Knapp, (written by friend Oakes³), headed “The New and old Puritans,” because it is written in a manner ⁴ calculated to exasperate, and not to convince. I know how important it is that I should keep the columns of the Liberator clear of sectarianism, nor have I ever intended to assail any denominational feelings or peculiarities. The Sabbath question is not sectarian, but general—yet the discussion of it is not exactly proper in the Liberator. I have received several letters remonstrating with me on account of my sentiments, but chiefly on the erroneous supposition that I was about making my paper the arena of a sabbatical controversy. Some of these are expressed in kind and friendly language. Not so is the one sent to me by young Hyde of this village [a theological student at New Haven]. Although he has paid in advance up to September, he says that he does not wish to receive another number of the paper—and he considers me “a dangerous member of the community, deserving the reprobation of every lover of his country!!”

But the letter which grieves and surprises me most is that of Rev. Jonathan Farr, of Harvard,⁵ with whom I believe you are somewhat acquainted. He says: “I had supposed you a very pious person, and that a large proportion of the abolitionists were religious persons . . . . I have thought of you as another Wilberforce—but would Wilberforce have spoken thus of the day on which the Son of God rose from the dead?. . . I have supposed, that, in your great and incessant exertions in the anti-slavery cause, you were influenced by no worldly nor political motive — that yours was a holy zeal and a Christian benevolence,” etc., etc. Here is Christian charity for you! Because, with Calvin, Belsham, Paley, Fox, Whitby, Barclay, Gill, Selden, Luther, and many other distinguished commentators and pious men, I maintain that, under the gospel dispensation, there is no such thing as a “holy day,” but that all