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

Mr. Garrison's part at the Ladies' Anti-Slavery¹ Convention held at the same time with the American anniversary, and presided over by Mary Parker, was necessarily that of a spectator. But, among the seventy-one delegates, he renewed his acquaintance with the Grimke sisters, who had of right entered themselves as from South Carolina, rather than from their present home in Philadelphia. Before the year ended he was to meet them again, under circumstances of the greatest importance to himself and to the cause.

At the New England Anti-Slavery Convention in June, which was studiously excluded from every church in² Boston save three—the Methodist Church in Church³ Street, the Congregational in Salem Street, and (for a marvel) the Park-Street Church (Congregational)—the relation of the clergy to the anti-slavery movement was naturally foremost among the topics for discussion. ⁴ Little opposition was shown to resolutions demanding the purification of the churches, by denying membership to slaveholders, by abolition prayers and preaching, and by ‘coming out’ from churches which were hopelessly given over to pro-slavery influences. William Goodell repeated the New York protest against the Connecticut attempt to consign to pastors the right to designate the amount and character of religious instruction to be imparted to their people—‘a prerogative comprising in essence one of the most despotic powers claimed by the slave-master over the slave.’ The unanimity of these proceedings, and their harmony with the whole course of Mr. Garrison and his associates with reference to a pro-slavery church and ministry, portended nothing of the sectarian conspiracy against the editor of the Liberator which was shortly to interrupt his well-earned summer repose.

It would be unjust to say that the signal for this was given by Dr. Channing, for it proceeded from a very