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

However, it could not be denied that the Convention which assembled for the second time at the Chardon-Street Chapel on Tuesday, March 30, 1841, had met in¹ pursuance of Mr. Garrison's motion, at the previous session, to discuss the origin and authority of the Ministry. The participants and combatants were much the same as before, and a preliminary skirmish again took place over a clerical attempt to restrict discussion within the lines and sanction of the Bible. The defeat of this movement was the only positive action of the Convention, which then freely took sides individually for or against the proposition, ‘That the order of the ministry, as at present existing, is anti-scriptural and of human origin.’ In this discussion Mr. Garrison appears to have said nothing, being unable to attend except for a few hours during the² three days; but he forestalled fresh clerical misrepresentation of the Convention by moving a committee to prepare resolutions explanatory of its nature and doings, and these resolutions were from his pen. He also prevented any notice being taken, by way of reply, of a Sabbatarian letter from Clarkson, which Nathaniel Colver had craftily procured, and introduced at the earliest moment. The snare was too obviously meant—on the one hand for Mr. Garrison himself, on the other for the³ Convention, whose members sought, as Emerson well said, ‘something better and more satisfying than a vote or a definition.’

This peculiar body met once more and finally on the⁴ 26th, 27th, and 28th of October, 1841, taking for its last topic the Church. Various causes kept away its main clerical antagonists, but they were represented by Phelps, who found it as infidel as ever. Mr. Garrison's resolutions are all of the proceedings that can be noticed here:

Resolved, That the true church is independent of all human⁵ organizations, creeds, or compacts.

Resolved, That it is not in the province of any man, or any body of men, to admit to or to exclude from that church any one who is created in the divine image.