Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 1

[216] disliking controversy with all his soul, he did not for a moment shrink from the path of trial which now opened before him. On the Sunday following the delivery of Mr. Garrison's lectures, Mr. May occupied the pulpit of Rev. Mr. Young at Church Green, in Summer Street. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I could not again speak to a ¹ congregation, as a Christian minister, and be silent respecting the great iniquity of our nation. The only sermon I had brought from my home in Connecticut that could be made to bear on the subject, was one on Prejudice—the sermon about to be published as one of the Tracts of the American Unitarian Association. So I touched it up as well as I could, interlining here and there words and sentences which pointed in the new direction to which my thoughts and feelings so strongly tended, and writing at its close what used to be called an improvement.’ This was a fervid appeal in behalf of the two millions of his fellow-beings in bondage. His concluding declaration, that the iniquity must be put an end to, even if the very foundations of the Republic itself were thereby broken up, created much excitement in the congregation. When he rose to pronounce the benediction, Mr. May said:

‘Every one present must be conscious that the closing ² remarks of my sermon have caused an unusual emotion throughout the church. I am glad. Would to God that a deeper emotion could be sent throughout our land, until all the people thereof shall be roused from their wicked insensibility to the most tremendous sin of which any nation was ever guilty, and be impelled to do that righteousness which alone can avert the just displeasure of God. I have been prompted to speak thus by the words I have heard during the past week from a young man hitherto unknown, but who is, I believe, called of God to do a greater work for the good of our country than has been done by any one since the Revolution. I mean William Lloyd Garrison. He is going to repeat his lectures the coming week. I advise, I exhort, I entreat—would that I could compel!— you to go and hear him.’

This fearless profession brought the immediate reproof and condemnation of Mr. Young, and the reprobation