Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 4

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Of course, that portion of the work which relates to H. M.'s views of theology and a future life will elicit more or less invective and traducement from a sectarian religious press; but the best answer to it all will be—

For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.

Judging by this test, H. M. is surely entitled to a conspicuous place in ‘the household of saints.’ Anyhow, ‘it is a small thing to be judged of man's judgment.’

Though, through much overworking and years of bodily prostration, I think she seemed to covet at last ‘the sleep that knows no waking,’ my faith is absolute that she ‘still lives,’ with all her faculties unimpaired, and there as here eager to know and serve the true and the right.

With kindest regards to you all,

Wm. Lloyd Garrison.

The winter of 1876-77 was a very trying one to Mr. Garrison, and his health became so much impaired that he finally yielded to the urgent solicitation of his physician and children that he should try a transatlantic trip. His friends in England, who hailed with delight the prospect of another visit from him, were warned that public meetings and receptions were out of the question, and that they must permit him to move among them quietly and obtain all the rest possible. He was doubly afflicted, on the eve of his departure, by the death of a beloved¹ daughter-in-law, who was to have accompanied him on² his voyage, and, a few days later, by that of his dear friend, Edmund Quincy, whose funeral he was unable to³ attend, being already in New York and about to embark when the news reached him.

His companion, as on his previous visit to England, was his youngest son. Leaving New York on the 23d of May,⁴ in the steamer Algeria, they arrived in Liverpool on the 3d of June, in good condition for the twelve weeks of delightful travel and social intercourse which followed, and of which it is difficult to give any adequate conception in this brief narrative.