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

‘“ [152] nium begins where Dr. Beecher's expires, viz., at the overthrow of this nation!” ’ This passage, which ‘had deeply affected his mind,’ he developed in contrast to the noisy celebration of the national holiday, with its impious assumption that the nation bore a charmed life and was immortal. He enumerated the several discouraging ‘signs of woe that all is lost,’ partly from the mystical standpoint already employed in the article on human government, partly from the standpoint of peace, and partly in view of recent phases of the antislavery conflict which made him declare, ‘The political dismemberment of our Union is ultimately to follow.’ There was, for example, the appalling fact of a union of church and state in support of slavery, of which it could be predicted that as the corruptions of the church were more deep and incurable than those of the state, the church would first be dashed in pieces.¹ Above all, there was the impending, the inevitable iniquity of Texan annexation, which had caused him in this sombre discourse to speak so despairingly of the salvation of his country.

Such were Mr. Garrison's politico-religious heresies as published to the world on the eve of the first Clerical Appeal, which, as has been seen, was not concerned with them. Two days after Mr. Woodbury's letter had been printed in the Spectator, there appeared in the Liberator of August 25 a poem entitled ‘True Rest,’ forwarded by² the editor from Brooklyn, with a prefatory note bearing date of August 14 and headed ‘Universal Emancipation’—the best expression of the new ideal which had taken possession of the writer. The note ran thus: ‘What an oath-taking, war-making, man-enslaving religion is that which is preached, professed, and practised in this country. . . . Its main pillars are Judaism and³ Popery, and no wonder the crazy superstructure is tottering to its fall. But God is preparing something better ’