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Chapter 2: the man hears a voice: Samuel, Samuel!
There is a moment in the life of every serious soul, when things, which were before unseen and unheard in the world around him become visible and audible.
This startling moment comes to some sooner, to others later, but to all, who are not totally given up to the service of self, at sometime surely.
From that moment a change passes over such an one, for more and more he hears mysterious voices, and clearer and more clear he sees apparitional forms floating up from the depths above which he kneels.
Whence come they, what mean they?
He leans over the abyss, and lo!
the sounds to which he hearkens are the voices of human weeping and the forms at which he gazes are the apparitions of human woe; they beckon to him, and the voices beseech him in multitudinous accent and heart-break : “Come over, come down, oh!
friend and brother, and help us.”
Then he straightway puts away the things and the thoughts of the past and girding himself with the things, and the thoughts of the divine
ought and the almighty
must, he goes over and down to the rescue.
Such an epochal first moment came to
William Lloyd Garrison in the streets of
Boston.
Amid the hard struggle for bread he heard the abysmal voices, saw the gaunt forms of misery.
He was a constant
