Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 3

[399] as I infer, a Christ to send it to the heathen, the slave, etc. I presume you.

These things being supp about the Bible and the. Sabbath certainly would make it appear, that if any man deems it his duty to lessen their standing in the eyes of the community, he ought at least to do it in a cautious and reverential spirit, with humility and prayer. My objection to the mode in which these matters are handled in the Liberator is, that the general tone and spirit seems to me the reverse of this. In place of calm, serious inquiry, I see hasty assertions, appeals to passion and prejudice, and a very general absence of proof of many of the things stated. Is this the way the image of eternal truth can be discovered? Can the stars mirror themselves in stormy and troubled water? As an instance of appeal to the passion, I notice your assertion with regard to the American clergy, that if public sentiment required it they would burn the¹ Bible to-morrow, etc. This includes all the clergy, without an exception, and accuses them of being unprincipled men, not fit to be trusted in any relation of life. Are assertions like these, which, in the nature of the case, cannot be proved, calculated to lead your hearers, on either side of the question, to that serious and dispassionate frame necessary for the examination of vital religious truth? H. C. Wright's pieces, some of them, contain reflections and assertions on the Jewish Scriptures which no benevolent and just man ought to make without great research and care, and without proper proof. . . .

Your name and benevolent labors have given your paper a circulation among many of the poor and lowly. They have no means of investigation, no habits of reasoning. The Bible, as they at present understand it, is doing them great good, and the Sabbath is a blessing to them and their families. The whole tendency of this mode of proceeding is to lessen their respect and reverence for the Bible while you give them nothing in its place.

It is true that Uncle Tom, having the witness in himself, cannot be shaken; but he has a family whom he is trying to restrain and guide by the motives drawn from this book; and when your paper breaks the bands of reverence and belief—when his sons learn that it (the Old Testament) is a mass of Jewish fables, of absurd and bloody stories, mingled with some good and excellent things, and that the New Testament is a history, of a very low degree of credibility, of a man just as fallible as themselves, and who was mistaken and has misled the whole