This text is part of:
[28]
he testifies himself, “I felt perfectly calmnay, very happy.
It seemed to me that it was indeed a blessed privilege thus to suffer in the cause of Christ.
Death did not present one repulsive feature.
The promises of God sustained my soul, so that it was not only divested of fear, but ready to sing for joy.”
This same courage enabled him to stigmatize the outrage in his paper according to its deserts, and never for an instant did he alter his tone from any sense of fear.
Harriet Martineau, who was visiting America at this time, gives her impressions of Garrison's appearance and manner.
“It was a countenance glowing with health, and wholly expressive of purity, animation and gentleness.”
She found “sagacity the most striking attribute of his conversation,” which was “of the most practical cast.”
The year 1837 showed a marked improvement in New England sentiment.
While it is true that the Congregational Church protested against the discussion of “certain topics” in meeting-houses, and that the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society could not find a suitable hall or church to meet in at Boston and was obliged to organize over a stable, still the legislature went so far as to permit it to make use of the state house.
This was a strong indication that the Abolitionists had become a power to reckon with.
Twelve
Chicago: the Public Publishing Company, 1905.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.