Archibald H. Grimke, William Lloyd Garrison the Abolitionist

[268] what he knew known to the people of Boston, he was forced, after vainly advertising for a hall or meetinghouse in which to give his three lectures, to accept the offer of Abner Kneeland's Society of Infidels of the use of their hall for that purpose. The spirit of these people, branded by the community as blasphemers, and by himself, too, in all probability, Garrison saw to be as admirable as the spirit displayed by the churches of the city toward him and his cause was unworthy and sinful. But, grateful as he was for the hospitality of the infidels, he, nevertheless, rather bluntly informed them that he had no sympathy with their religious notions, and that he looked for the abolition of slavery to evangelicism, and to it alone.

A few years in the university of experience, where he learned that conduct is better than creeds, and living more than believing, served to emancipate him from illiberal prejudices and narrow sectarianism. He came to see, “that in Christ Jesus all stated observances are so many self-imposed and unnecessary yokes; and that prayer and worship are all embodied in that pure, meek, child-like state of heart which affectionately and reverently breathes but one petition-‘ Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ Religion . . . is nothing but love-perfect love toward God and toward man-without formality, without hypocrisy, without partiality-depending upon no outward form to preserve its vitality or prove its existence.”

This important change in Mr. Garrison's religious convictions became widely known in the summer of

1836 through certain editorial strictures of his upon