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

[212] she answered in the affirmative. If so, I fear she will be prepared to go further. For I did hope that she had been led to see, that in Christ Jesus all stated observances are so many self-imposed and unnecessary yokes; and that prayer and worship are all embodied in that pure, meek, childlike state of heart which affectionately and reverently breathes but one petition—‘Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’ Religion, dear Helen, is nothing but love—perfect love toward God and toward man—without formality, without hypocrisy, without partiality—depending upon no outward form to preserve its vitality or prove its existence. May you know its abiding operation.

Last evening, I took tea with bro. Wright and the Grimkes¹ at Robert Douglass's house (a colored friend), after which we went to hear Joseph John Gurney preach at the Arch-Street meeting-house. He is a distinguished orthodox Friend from England, with whom I became slightly acquainted in London. The spacious house was crowded to overflowing, but I derived no edification from the sermon, the object of which seemed to be to warn the young Friends not to fall into the Hicksite heresy. He is, in his personal appearance, a fine specimen of English corporosity, having ‘a fair round belly, with good capon lined.’ During his long and tedious harangue, he stood fixed like a statue, with his hands lazily flung behind him, and singing his badly enunciated words in the usual absurd and unnatural manner of Quaker preachers. Although he was a flaming abolitionist in England, he has acted in this country very much as Cox and Hoby did, having scarcely opened his lips since his² arrival on the subject of slavery. He is very staid and formal in his movements, and, on sitting down at the conclusion of his discourse, manifested as much care as if he had a score of eggs under him. I went with bro. Wright, this morning, to see him;³ but, anticipating a visit from me, he obviously chose to be absent, and so our call was in vain. He leaves the city to-day. When will England send us another man, like George Thompson, able to stand erect on our slave-cursed soil?

Yesterday afternoon, a number of our abolition friends⁴ arrived from New York—among them Alvan Stewart, St. Clair, Mr. Fuller and wife, dear Mary, etc. On board the⁵ steamboat from Bordentown to Philadelphia, our friends obtained leave of the captain to hold a discussion in the cabin on slavery. Several slaveholders were on board. Alvan Stewart had not spoken more than a minute or two before they began