Atrocious as it is, it does not excite any special surprise in2 my breast; for my acquaintance with the author, for the last two or three years, has fully satisfied me that he is a wolf in sheep's clothing—a bitter enemy of holiness—a practical unbeliever in the gospel—a stranger to the spirit of Christ—and unworthy of confidence or respect. This opinion he knows I have long entertained of him as a man and as a professed teacher of religion; for, having frequently brought him to the test of eternal truth, and clearly perceived the temper of his mind, I have felt it my duty to tell him, frankly and faithfully, what is my estimate of his character. My fidelity to him has greatly enraged him; and as there is no malignity like that of a corrupt priest when he finds that his mask of profession fails to conceal his moral deformity, it is perfectly natural that he should endeavor to revenge himself as opportunity may offer. My friends in England may rest assured that this pretended zeal of Nathaniel Colver for the institutions of religion, and this slanderous assault upon my religious views, proceed from personal animosity towards myself; nor would they be led astray by any false statements he might be disposed to make, if they knew him as well as he is known at home by those who are able to discriminate between the form of godliness and the power of it.3
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This tissue of falsehoods already appears in its true light to the attentive reader of what has gone before.
Mr. Garrison resented it not only as a stab in the dark,1 intended to ruin his character among the abolitionists of England, but as a gross impertinence.
‘Whatever I may think of “the Sabbath, the Church, and the Ministry,” it is not a matter that concerns abolitionists, and does not come within the “appropriate sphere” of their approval or condemnation.
Whoever will undertake to show that I am not an Abolitionist, will speak to a point that is pertinent, and not travel out of the record.’
As to the motive of Colver's defamation:
3 ‘If Garrison,’ writes Elizabeth Pease to Collins, Dec. 25, 1840 (Ms.), ‘be an infidel, let us know it; at all events, stronger evidence than the word of N. Colver will be necessary to convince me of the fact. If he be, he is of all men most dangerous, for he exhibits the Christian graces to an extent which I never saw displayed by any of these highprofessing Reverends.’
The Century Company. , 1885-1889.
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