Chapter XXXVIII: Part 38

The subject of this sketch was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, November 14, 1810, the oldest but one of eight children. On his father's side, he was of Scotch Irish, on his mother's (Miller) of German descent. He graduated at Dickinson College in 1828; and entering upon the study of medicine, attended one or more courses of lectures in the University of Pennsylvania. Before he was ready to take his degree, his mind was powerfully turned towards religion, and he relinquished medicine for the study of divinity, entering the Theological Seminary at Princeton, in the fall of 1831, and a year later, being matriculated at Andover. The death of his parents, however, and subsequently that of his oldest brother, made his connection with both these institutions a very brief one, and he was obliged, as the charge of the family now devolved upon him, to continue his studies privately at home, under the friendly direction of the late Dr. Duffield. An ardent and pronounced disciple of the "New School" of Presbyterians, belonging to a strongly Old School Presbytery; he was able to secure license and ordination only by transfer to another; and, in October, 1835, he accepted a pulpit in Womelsdorf, Berks County, Pa., where he preached for one year, to a Presbyterian congregation, to what purpose, and with what views, may be learned from the following passage taken from one of his letters, written more than twenty years afterwards, to the _National Anti-Slavery Standard_. "The first settled pastor of this little flock was one sufficiently well-known to such of your readers as will be interested in this, to make mention of his name unnecessary. He had studied for the ministry with a strong desire, and a half formed purpose to become a missionary in foreign lands. Before he had proceeded far in his studies, however, he became alive to the claims of the 'perishing heathen' here at home. When he received his licensure, his mind was divided between the still felt impulse of his first purpose and the pressure of his later convictions. While yet unsettled on this point, the case of the little church at Womelsdorf was made known to him, followed by an urgent request from the people and from the Home Missionary Society to take charge of it. He acceded to the request and remained there one year, zealously performing the duties of his office to the best of his knowledge and ability. The people, earnest and simple-hearted, desired the 'sincere milk of the Word,' and receiving it 'grew thereby.' All the members of the church became avowed abolitionists. They showed their faith by their works, contributing liberally to the funds of the Anti-slavery Society. Many a seasonable donation has our Pennsylvania organization received from that quarter. For though their anti-slavery minister had left and had been followed by others of different sentiments and though he had withdrawn from the church with which they were in common connected, and that on grounds which subjected him to the imputation and penalties af heresy, these good people did not feel called upon to change their relations of personal friendship, nor did they make it a pretext, as others have done, for abandoning the cause."

In October, 1836, he accepted a lecturing agency under the American Anti-slavery Society, as one of the "seventy," gathered from all professions, whom Theodore D. Weld had by his eloquence inspired to spread the gospel of emancipation. Mr. McKim had long before this had his attention drawn to the subject of slavery, in the summer of 1832; and the reading of Garrison's "Thoughts on Colonization," at once made him an abolitionist. He was an appointed delegate to the Convention which formed the American Anti-slavery Society, and enjoyed the distinction of being the youngest member of that body.[A] Henceforth the object of the society, and of his ministry became inseparable in his mind.

[Footnote A: It may be a matter of some interest to state that the original draft of the Declaration of Sentiments adopted at this meeting, together with the autographs of the signers, is now in the keeping of the New York Historical Society.]

In the following summer, 1834, he delivered in Carlisle two addresses in favor of immediate emancipation, which excited much discussion and bitter feeling in that border community, and gained him no little obloquy, which was of course increased when, as a lecturer, on the regular stipend of eight dollars a week and travelling expenses, ("pocket lined with British gold" was the current charge), he traversed his native state, among a people in the closest geographical, commercial, and social contact with the system of slavery. His fate was not different from that of his colleagues, in respect of interruptions of his meetings by mob violence, personal assaults with stale eggs and other more dangerous missiles, and a public sentiment which everywhere encouraged and protected the rioters.

Meantime, a radical change of opinion on theological questions, led Mr. McKim formally to sever his connection with the Presbyterian Church, and ministry. Being now free to act without sectarian constraint, he was, in the beginning of 1840, made Publishing Agent of the Pennsylvania Anti-slavery Society, which caused him to settle in Philadelphia, where he was married, in October, to Sarah A. Speakman, of Chester county. The chief duties of his office at first, were the publication and management of the _Pennsylvania Freeman_, including, for an interval after the retirement of John G. Whittier, the editorial conduct of that paper. In course of time his functions were enlarged, and under the title of Corresponding Secretary, he performed the part of a factotum and general manager, with a share in all the anti-slavery work, local and national. After the consolidation of the _Freeman_ with the _Standard_, in 1854, he became the official correspondent of the latter paper, his letters serving to some extent as a substitute for the discontinued _Freeman_. The operations of the Underground Rail Road came under his review and partial control, as has already appeared in these pages, and the slave cases which came before the courts claimed a large share of his attention. After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, in 1851, his duties in this respect were arduous and various, as may be inferred from one of his private letters to an English friend, which found its way into print abroad, and which will be found in another place. (See p. 581).

During the John Brown excitement Mr. McKim had the privilege of accompanying Mrs. Brown in her melancholy errand to Harper's Ferry, to take her last leave of her husband before his execution, and to bring away the body. His companions on that painful but memorable journey, were his wife, and Hector Tyndale, Esq., afterwards honorably distinguished in the war as General Tyndale. Returning with the body of the hero and martyr, still in company with Mrs. Brown, Mr. McKim proceeded to North Elba, where he and Wendell Phillips, who had joined him in New York with a few other friends gathered from the neighborhood, assisted in the final obsequies.

When the war broke out, Mr. McKim was one of the first to welcome it as the harbinger of the slave's deliverance, and the country's redemption. "A righteous war," he said, "is better than a corrupt peace. * * * When war can only be averted by consenting to crime, then welcome war with all its calamities." In the winter of 1862, after the capture of Port Royal, he procured the calling of a public meeting of the citizens of Philadelphia to consider and provide for the wants of the ten thousand slaves who had been suddenly liberated. One of the results of this meeting was the organization of the Philadelphia Port Royal Relief Committee. By request he visited the Sea Islands, accompanied by his daughter, and on his return made a report which served his associates as a basis of operations, and which was republished extensively in this country and abroad.

After the proclamation of emancipation, he advocated an early dissolution of the anti-slavery organization, and at the May Meeting of the American Anti-slavery Society, in 1864, introduced a proposition looking to that result. It was favorably received by Mr. Garrison and others, but no action was taken upon it at that time. When the question came up the following year, the proposition to disband was earnestly supported by Mr. Garrison, Mr. Quincy, Mr. May, Mr. Johnson, and others, but was strongly opposed by Wendell Phillips and his friends, among whom from Philadelphia were Mrs. Mott, Miss Grew, and Robert Purvis, and was decided by a vote in the negative.

Mr. McKim was an early advocate of colored enlistments, as a means of lifting up the blacks and putting down the rebellion. In the spring of 1863, he urged upon the Philadelphia Union League, of which he was a member, the duty of recruiting colored soldiers; as the result, on motion of Thomas Webster, Esq., a movement was set on foot which led to the organization of the Philadelphia Supervisory Committee, and the subsequent establishment of Camp William Penn, with the addition to the national army, of eleven colored regiments.

When, in November, 1863, the Port Royal Relief Committee was enlarged into the Pennsylvania Freedman's Relief Association, Mr. McKim was made its corresponding secretary. He had previously resigned his place in the Anti-slavery Society, believing that that organization was near the end of its usefulness.

EMINENT ANTI-SLAVERY MEN

In the freedmen's work, he traveled extensively, and worked hard, establishing schools at the South and organizing public sentiment in the free States. In the spring of 1865, he was made corresponding secretary of the American Freedman's Commission, which he had helped to establish, and took up his residence in the city of New York. This association was afterwards amplified, in name and scope, into the American Freedman's Union Commission, and Mr. McKim continued with it as corresponding secretary, laboring for reconstruction by means of Freedman's schools, and impartial popular education. On the 1st of July, 1869, the Commission, by unanimous vote on his motion, disbanded, and handed over the funds in its treasury to its constituent State associations. Mr. McKim retired from his labors with impaired health, and has since taken no open part in public affairs. He is one of the proprietors of the New York _Nation_, in the establishment of which, he took an effective interest.

Mr. McKim's long and assiduous career in the anti-slavery cause, has given evidence of a peculiar fitness in him for the functions he successively discharged. His influence upon men and the times, has been less as a speaker, than as a writer, and perhaps still less as a writer than as an organizer, a contriver of ways and means; fertile in invention, prepared to take the initiative, and bringing to the conversion of others, an earnestness of purpose and a force of language that seldom failed of success. In an enterprise where theory and sentiment were fully represented, and business capacity, and what is called "practical sense," were comparatively rare, his talents were most usefully employed; while, in periods of excitement--and when were such wanting? his caution, sound judgment, and mental balance were qualities hardly less needed or less important.

WILLIAM H. FURNESS, D.D.

Among the Abolitionists of Pennsylvania no man stands higher than Dr. Furness; and no anti-slavery minister enjoys more universal respect. For more than thirty years he bore faithful witness for the black man; in season and out of season contending for his rights. When others deserted the cause he stood firm; when associates in the ministry were silent he spoke out. They defined their position by declaring themselves "as much opposed to slavery as ever, but without sympathy for the abolitionists." He defined his by showing himself more opposed to slavery than ever, and fraternizing with the most hated and despised anti-slavery people.

Dr. Furness came into the cause when it was in its infancy, and had few adherents. From that time till the day of its triumph he was one with it, sharing in all its trials and vicissitudes. In the operations of the Vigilance Committee he took the liveliest interest. Though not in form a member he was one of its chief co-laborers. He brought it material aid continually, and was one of its main reliances for outside support. His quick sympathies were easily touched and when touched were sure to prompt him to corresponding action. He would listen with moistened eyes to a tale of outrage, and go away saying never a word. But the story of wrong would work upon him; and through him upon others. His own feelings were communicated to his friends, and his friends would send gifts to the Committee's treasury. A wider spread sympathy would manifest itself in the community, and the general interests of the cause be visibly promoted. It was in the latter respect, that of moral co-operation, that Dr. Furness's services were most valuable. After hearing a harrowing recital, whether he would or not, it became the burden of his next Sunday's sermon. Abundant proof of this may be found in his printed discourses. Take the following as an illustration. It is an extract from a sermon delivered on the 29th of May, 1854, a period when the slave oligarchy was at the height of its power and was supported at the North by the most violent demonstrations of sympathy. The text was, "Feed my Lambs:"

"And now brothers, sisters, children, give me your hearts,
listen with a will to what I have to say. As heaven is my
witness, I would not utter one word save for the dear love of
Christ and of God, and the salvation of your own souls. Does it
require any violent effort of the mind to suppose Christ to
address each one of us personally the same question that He put
to Peter, 'Lovest thou me?' * * * And at the hearing of His
brief command, 'Feed my lambs,' so simple, so direct, so
unqualified, are we prompted like the teacher of the law who,
when Christ bade him love his neighbor as himself, asked, 'And
who is my neighbor?' and in the parable of the good Samaritan,
received an answer that the Samaritans whom he despised, just as
we despise the African, was his neighbor, are we prompted in
like manner to ask, 'Who are the lambs of Christ?' Who are His
lambs? Behold that great multitude, more than three millions of
men and feeble women and children, wandering on our soil; no not
wandering, but chained down, not allowed to stir a step at their
own free will, crushed and hunted with all the power of one of
the mightiest nations that the world has yet seen, wielded to
keep them down in the depths of the deepest degradation into
which human beings can be plunged. These, then that we despise,
are our neighbors, the poor, stricken lambs of Christ.

To cast one thought towards them, may well cause us to bow down
our heads in the very dust with shame. No wonder that professing
to love Christ and his religion, we do not like to hear them
spoken of; for so far from feeding the lambs of Christ, we are
exciting the whole associated power of this land, to keep them
from being fed. 'Feed my lambs,' We might feed them with
fraternal sympathy, with hope, with freedom, the imperishable
bread of Heaven. We might lead them into green pastures and
still waters, into the glorious liberty wherewith Christ died to
make all men free, the liberty of the children of God. We might
secure to them the exercise of every sacred affection and
faculty, wherewith the Creator has endowed them. But we do none
of those things. We suffer this great flock of the Lord Jesus to
be treated as chattels, bought and sold, like beasts of burden,
hunted and lacerated by dogs and wolves. I say we, we of these
Free Northern communities, because it is by our allowance,
signified as effectually by silence, as by active co-operation,
that such things are. They could continue so, scarcely an hour,
were not the whole moral, religious and physical power of the
North pledged to their support. Are we not in closest league and
union with those who claim and use the right to buy and sell
human beings, God's poor, the lambs of Christ, a union, which we
imagine brings us in as much silver and gold as compensates for
the sacrifice of our humanity and manhood? Nay, are we not under
a law to do the base work of bloodhounds, hunting the panting
fugitives for freedom? I utter no word of denunciation. There is
no need. For facts that have occurred only within the last week,
transcend all denunciation. Only a few hours ago, there was a
man with his two sons, hurried back into the inhuman bondage,
from which they had just escaped, and that man, the brother, and
those two sons, the nephews of a colored clergyman of New York,
of such eminence in the New School Presbyterian Church, that he
has received the honors of a European University, and has acted
as Moderator in one of the Presbyteries of the same Church, when
held in the city where he resides. Almost at the very moment the
poor fugitive with his children, were dragged through our city,
the General Assembly of that very branch of the Presbyterian
Church, now in session here, after discussing for days the
validity of Roman Catholic baptism, threw out as inexpedient to
be discussed, the subject of that great wrong which was flinging
back into the agony of Slavery, a brother of one of their own
ordained ministers, and could not so much as breathe a word of
condemnation against the false and cruel deed which has just
been consummated at the capitol of the nation.

When such facts are occurring in the midst of us, we cannot be
guiltless concerning the lambs of Christ. It is we, we who make
up the public opinion of the North, we who consent that these
free States shall be the hunting-ground, where these, our poor
brothers and sisters, are the game; it is we that withhold from
them the bread of life, the inalienable rights of man. As we
withhold these blessings, so is it in our power to bestow them.
The sheep then that Christ commands us, as we love Him, to feed,
are those who are famishing for the lack of the food which it is
in our power to supply. And we can help to feed and relieve and
liberate them, by giving our hearty sympathy to the blessed
cause of their emancipation, to the abolition of the crying
injustice with which they are treated, by uttering our earnest
protest against the increasing and flagrant outrages of the
oppressor, by withholding all aid and countenance from the work
of oppression."

To say that Dr. Furness, in his pleadings for the slave, was "instant in season and out of season," is not to exaggerate. So palpably was this true, that even some of his sympathizing friends intimated to him, that his zeal carried him beyond proper bounds, and that his discourses were needlessly reiterative. To these friends,--who, it is needless to say, did not fully comprehend the breadth and bearing of the question,--he would reply as he did in the following extract from a sermon delivered soon after the one above quoted:

"Again and again, I have had it said to me, with apparently the
most perfect simplicity, 'Why do you keep saying so much about
the slaves? Do you imagine that there is one among your hearers
who does not agree with you? We all know that Slavery is very
wrong. What, is the use of harping upon this subject Sunday
after Sunday? We all feel about it just as you do.' 'Feel about
it just as I do,' Very likely, my friends. It is very possible
that you all feel as much, and that many of you feel about it
more than I do. God knows that my regret always has been not
that I feel so much, but that I do not feel more. Would to
Heaven that neither you nor I could eat or sleep for pity, pity
for our poor down-trodden brothers and sisters. But the thing to
which I implore your attention now, is, not what we know and
feel, but the delusion which we are under, in confounding
_knowing_ with _doing_, in fancying that we are working to
abolish Slavery because we know that it is wrong. This is what I
would have you now to consider, the deception that we practise
on ourselves, the dangerous error into which we fall, when we
pass off the knowledge of our duty for the performance of it.
These are two very distinct things. If you know what is right,
happy are ye if ye do it.

Observe, my friends, what it is to which I am now entreating
your consideration. It is not the wrongs nor the rights of the
oppressed upon which I am now discoursing. It is our own
personal exposure to a most serious mistake. It is a danger,
which threatens our own souls, to which I would that our eyes
should be open and on the watch.

And here, by the way, let me say that one great reason why I
refer as often as I do, to that great topic of the day, which,
in one shape or another, is continually shaking the land and
marking the age in which we live, is not merely the righting of
the wronged, but the instruction, the moral enlightenment, the
religious edification of our own hearts, which this momentous
topic affords. To me this subject involves infinitely more than
a mere question of humanity. Its political bearing is the very
least and most superficial part of it, scarcely worth noticing
in comparison with its moral and religious relations. Once,
deterred by its outside, political aspect, I shunned it as many
do still, but the more it has pressed itself on my attention,
the more I have considered it--the more and more manifest has it
become to me, that it is a subject full of light and of
guidance, of warning and inspiration for the individual soul. It
is the most powerful means of grace and salvation appointed in
the providence of Heaven, for the present day and generation,
more religious than churches and Sabbaths. It is full of
sermons. It is a perfect gospel, a whole Bible of
mind-enlightening, heart-cleansing, soul-saving truth. How much
light has it thrown for me on the page of the New Testament!
What a profound significance has it disclosed in the precepts
and parables of Jesus Christ! How do His words burst out with a
new meaning! How does it help us to appreciate His trials and
the Godlike spirit with which He bore them!"

The dark winter of 1860 broke gloomily over all abolitionists; perhaps upon none did it press more heavily, than upon the small band in Philadelphia. Situated as that city is, upon the very edge of Slavery, and socially bound as it was, by ties of blood or affinity with the slave-holders of the South, to all human foresight it would assuredly be the first theatre of bloodshed in the coming deadly struggle. As Dr. Furness said in his sermon on old John Brown: "Out of the grim cloud that hangs over the South, a bolt has darted, and blood has flowed, and the place where the lightning struck, is wild with fear." The return stroke we all felt must soon follow, and Philadelphia, we feared, would be selected as the spot where Slavery would make its first mortal onslaught, and the abolitionists there, the first victims. Dr. Furness had taken part in the public meeting held on the day of John Brown's execution, to offer prayers for the heroic soul that was then passing away, and had gone with two or three others, to the rail-road station, to receive the martyr's body, when it was brought from the gallows by Mr. (afterwards General) Tyndale and Mr. McKim, and it was generally feared that he and his church would receive the brunt of Slavery's first blow. The air was thick with vague apprehension and rumor, so much so, that some of Dr. Furness's devoted parishioners, who followed his abolitionism but not his non-resistance, came armed to church, uncertain what an hour might bring forth, or in what shape of mob violence or assassination the blow would fall. Few of Dr. Furness's hearers will forget his sermon of December 16, 1860, so full was it of prophetic warning, and saddened by the thought of the fate which might be in store for him and his congregation. It was printed in the "Evening Bulletin," and made a deep impression on the public outside of his own church, and was reprinted in full, in the Boston "Atlas."

"But the trouble cannot be escaped. It must come. But we can put
it off. By annihilating free speech; by forbidding the utterance
of a word in the pulpit and by the press, for the rights of man;
by hurling back into the jaws of oppression, the fugitive
gasping for his sacred liberty; by recognizing the right of one
man to buy and sell other men; by spreading the blasting curse
of despotism over the whole soil of the nation, you may allay
the brutal frenzy of a handful of southern slave-masters; you
may win back the cotton States to cease from threatening you
with secession, and to plant their feet upon your necks, and so
evade the trouble that now menaces us. Then you may live on the
few years that are left you, and perhaps--it is not certain--we
may be permitted to make a little more money and die in our
beds. But no, friends, I am mistaken. We cannot put the trouble
off. Or, we put it off in its present shape, only that it may
take another and more terrible form. If, to get rid of the
present alarm, we concede all that makes it worth while to
live--and nothing less will avail--perhaps those who can
deliberately make such a concession, will not feel the
degradation, but, stripped of all honor and manhood, they may
eat as heartily and sleep as soundly as ever. But the
degradation is not the less, but the greater, for our
unconsciousness of it. The trouble which we shall then bring
upon ourselves, is a trouble in comparison with which the loss
of all things but honor is a glorious gain, and a violent death
for right's sake on the scaffold, or by the hands of a mob,
peace and joy and victory.

Since we are thus placed, and there is no alternative for us of
the free States, but to meet the trouble that is upon us, or by
base concessions and compromises to bring upon ourselves a far
greater trouble, in the name of God, let us let all things go,
and cleave to the right. Prepared to confront the crisis like
men, let us with all possible calmness endeavor to take the
measure of the calamity that we dread. God knows I have no
desire to make light of it. But I affirm, that never since the
world began, was there a grander cause for which to speak, to
suffer and to die, than the cause of these free States, as
against that of the States now rushing upon Secession. The great
grievance of which they complain, is nothing more nor less than
this: that we endanger the right they claim to treat human
beings as beasts of burden. And they maintain this monstrous
claim by measures inhuman and barbarous, listening not to the
voice of reason or humanity, but treating every man who goes
amongst them, suspected of not favoring their cause, or of the
remotest connection with others who do not favor it, with a most
savage and fiendish cruelty. It is the conflict between
barbarism and civilization, between liberty and the most
horrible despotism that ever cursed this earth, in which we are
called to take part.

And all that is great and noble in the past, all the patriots
and martyrs that have suffered in man's behalf, all the sacred
instincts and hopes of the human soul are on our side, and the
welfare of untold generations of men. Oh, if God, in his
infinite bounty, grants us the grace to appreciate the
transcendent worth of the cause which is now at stake, there is
no trouble that can befall us, no, not the loss of property, of
idolized parents or children, or life itself, that we shall not
count a blessed privilege. To serve this dear cause of peace and
liberty and love, we have no need to grasp the sword or any
instrument of violence and death. But we must be ready without
flinching, to confront the utmost that men can do, and amidst
all the uproar and violence of human passions, still calmly to
assert and to exercise our sacred and inalienable liberties, let
who will frown and forbid, assured that no just and
law-of-God-abiding people, will ever do otherwise than give us
their sympathy and their aid.

Death is the worst that can befall us, if so be that we are
faithful to the right. It is a solemn and a fearful thing to
die, and mortality shrinks from facing that last great mystery.
But we must all die, my friends, and the dying hour is not far
distant from the youngest of us. To most of us it is very near.
To many, only a few brief years remain. And for the sake of
these few and uncertain years, shall we push off this present
trouble upon our children, who have to stay here a little
longer? There is nothing that can so sweeten the bitter cup of
mortality when we shall be called to drink it, nothing that can
so cheer us in the prospect of parting from all we love, nothing
that can send such a blessed light on before us into the dark
valley which we must enter, as the consciousness of fidelity to
man and to God. And now in these times of great trouble which
have come upon us, we have a peculiar and special opportunity of
testifying our fidelity, and of enjoying a full experience of
its power to support us. We may gather from this trouble, a
sweetness that shall take away from all suffering its
bitterness. We may kindle that light in our bosoms, which shall
make death come to us as a radiant angel."

Four months after the above was uttered, on the 28th of April, 1861, after the attack on Fort Sumter, and the whole North had burst into a flame, people of all denominations flocked to Dr. Furness's church, as to that church which had shown that it was founded on a rock, and none can ever forget the long-drawn breath with which the sermon began: "The long agony is over!" It was the _"Te Deum_" of a life-time.

Dr. Furness's words and counsels were not wanting throughout the war, and his sermons were constantly printed in the daily press and in separate pamphlet form. And since its close he has continued his absorbing study of the historical accounts of Jesus.

Dr. Furncss was born in Boston, in April, 1802, and was graduated at Harvard, in 1820, and five years later became the minister of the First Congregational Unitarian Christians, in this city, and is consequently the senior clergyman, here, on the score of length of pastorate.

Happy is the man, and enviable the gospel minister, who, looking back upon his course in the great anti-slavery contest, can recall as the chief charge brought against him, that of being over-zealous! That he spoke too often and said too much in favor of the slave! There are but few men, and still fewer ministers, who have a right to take comfort from such recollections! and yet it is to this small class that the cause is most indebted under God, for its triumph, and the country for its deliverance from Slavery.

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.

The character and career of the leader of the movement for immediate emancipation in this country, are too well known to be dwelt on here; nor, in the space at our command, is it possible to give in full those facts of his life which have already appeared in print. His earliest biographer was Mary Howitt; and another even more famous authoress, Mrs. H.B. Stowe, in "Men of Our Times," has stood in the same relation to him, while his life-long friend, Oliver Johnson, has writen the best concise account of him, in "Appleton's New American Cyclopædia."

Mr. Garrison (the Cyclopædia is, on this point, in error) was born December 12, 1804, in Newburyport, Mass., his father, Abijah Garrison, being a ship-captain, trading with the West Indies, and his mother, Fanny Lloyd, a woman of remarkable beauty, as well as piety and force of character. Intemperate habits led the husband and father from home to a solitary and obscure end, leaving his family entirely dependent. William (or as he was always called, Lloyd), was the youngest but one of five children, and had not done with his schooling before he began to contribute to his own support; at first in Lynn, where he was set at shoemaking, at the age of eleven; afterwards in Newburyport, and finally, in 1818, at Haverhill, where he was apprenticed to a cabinet maker. Not finding these trades suited to his taste, the same year he was indentured to Ephraim W. Allen, editor of the "_Newburyport Herald_," and in the printing-office he completed his education, so far as he was to have any, with such early success, as soon to be an acceptable contributor to his employer's paper, while the authorship of his articles was still his own secret. As soon as his apprenticeship came to a close, in 1826, he became proprietor of the "_Free Press_," in his native city, but the paper failed of support. Seeking work as a journeyman, in Boston, he was engaged in 1827 to edit, in the interest of "total abstinence," the "_National Philanthropist,"_ the first paper of its kind ever published. On a change of proprietors in 1828, he was induced to join a friend in Bennington, Vt., in publishing the "_Journal of the Times_," which advocated the election of John Quincy Adams for president, besides being devoted to peace, temperance, anti-slavery and other reforms. In this town, Mr. Garrison began his agitation of the subject of Slavery, "in consequence of which there was transmitted to Congress an anti-slavery memorial, more numerously signed than any similar paper previously submitted to that body." It was in Bennington, too, that he received from Benjamin Lundy, who had met him the previous year at his boarding-house in Boston, an invitation to go to Baltimore, and aid him in editing the "_Genius of Universal Emancipation_."

Baltimore was no strange city to Mr. Garrison. Thither he had accompanied his mother, in 1815, serving as a chore-boy, and he had visited her just before her death, in 1823. He took leave of Boston in the fall of 1829, after having acted as the orator of the day, July 4th, in Park Street church, and surprised his hearers by the boldness of his utterances on the subject of Slavery. The causes of his imprisonment at Baltimore scarcely need to be repeated. For an alleged "gross and malicious libel" on a townsman (of Newburyport) whose ship was engaged in the coastwise slave-trade, and whom he accordingly denounced in the "_Genius_," he was tried and convicted, and sentenced to pay a fine of $50 and costs. The cell in which he was confined for forty-nine days, and from which he was liberated only by the spontaneous liberality of Arthur Tappan, a perfect stranger to him, he had the satisfaction of reseeking, after the close of the war, in company with Judge Bond, but the prison had been removed.

Compelled to part company with Lundy, to whom he has ever owned his moral indebtedness, Mr. Garrison at length started in Boston, in January 1831, his "_Liberator_" with little else besides his "dauntless spirit and a press." The difficulties which beset the birth of this paper were never entirely overcome, and its publication was attended, through all the thirty-five years of its existence, with constant struggle and privation, and with personal labor, at the printer's case, and over the forms, which only an iron constitution could have endured. The "_Liberator_" was the organ of the editor alone, and he gave room in it to the numerous reforms which were, in his mind, only subordinate to abolition. In 1865 the last volume was issued, Mr. Garrison having already, in May, withdrawn from the American Anti-slavery Society, which he had helped to found, in 1833, and of which, as he drew up the Declaration of Sentiments, he may be supposed to have known something of the original aims and proper duration.

In September, 1834, Mr. Garrison was married to Helen Eliza, daughter of the venerable philanthropist, George Benson, of Providence, R.I., who had, even in the previous century, been an active member of a combined anti-slavery and freedmen's aid society in that city. In October, 1835, occurred the Boston riot, led by "gentlemen of property and standing," in which Mr. Garrison's life was imperilled, and which made him once more familiar with the interior of a jail--this time, a place of refuge. In 1832, he went to England, as an agent of the New England Anti-slavery Society, to awaken English sympathy for the anti-slavery movement, and to undeceive Clarkson and Wilberforce and their distinguished associates as to the nature and object of the Colonization Society, as to which he had already had occasion to undeceive himself. His mission was eminently successful in both its aspects, and resulted in the subsequent visits of George Thompson to this country, between whom and himself a strong personal attachment had arisen and has ever since continued. A second visit to England he made as a delegate to the World's Anti-slavery Convention, in which he refused to sit after his female colleagues had been rejected. A third visit, still in behalf of the cause, took place in 1846. Twenty years later--the war over and Slavery abolished--he again went abroad, to repair his health and renew old friendships, and for the first time passed over to the Continent. In England, he was greeted with cordial appreciation and hospitality by all classes. Numerous public receptions of a most flattering character were given to him, but without the effect of causing him to magnify his own merits or to forget the honor due to his associates in the anti-slavery struggle. At the London Breakfast, where John Bright presided, and John Stuart Mill, the Duke of Argyll, and others spoke, he said, when called upon to reply: "I disclaim, with all the sincerity of my soul, any special praise for anything I have done. I have simply tried to maintain the integrity of my soul before God, and to do my duty." In Edinburgh, the "freedom of the city" was conferred upon him with impressive ceremonies--he being the third American ever thus honored. In Paris he was also received with distinction, his special mission to that city being to attend the International Anti-slavery Convention, in the capacity of a delegate from the American Freedman's Union Commission, of which he was first vice-president.

The justice of the war on the part of the North, and its effect on the fate of Slavery at the South, were never subjects of doubt in the mind of Mr. Garrison, and he quickly recognized the force of events which had taken from the abolitionists the helm of direction, and reunited them with their countrymen in the irresistible flood which no man's hand guided, and no man's hand could stay. An agitator from conviction and not from choice, he was only too glad to lay down the heavy burden of a life-time, and retire to well-earned repose, after such a vision of faint hope realized as certainly no other reformer was ever blessed with. He had lived to see the disunion which he advocated on sacred principles, attempted by the South in the name of the sum of all villanies; the uprising of the North; the grand career of Lincoln; the proclamation of emancipation; the arming of the blacks--his own son among their officers; the end of the rebellion; and the consummation of his prayers and labors for the salvation of his country. He had taken part in the ceremonies at the recovery of Sumter, had walked the streets of Charleston, and received floral tokens of the gratitude of the emancipated. To him it seemed as if his work was done, and that he might, without suspicion or accusation, cease to be conspicuous, or to occupy the public attention in any way relating to the past and recalling his part in the anti-slavery struggle. Notoriety, no longer a necessity, was eagerly avoided; and the physical rest which was now enjoined upon him the liberality of his friends having enabled him to secure, he settled down into the quiet life of a private citizen, whose great duty had become to him merely one of the duties which every man owes his country and his race. His sweet temper, his modesty, his unfailing cheerfulness, his rarely mistaken judgment of men and measures; his blameless and happy domestic life, and his hospitality; his warm sympathy with all forms of human suffering--these and other qualities which cannot be enumerated here, will doubtless receive the just judgment of posterity.

As a fitting adjunct to the foregoing sketch, extracts from some of the speeches made at the London breakfast so magnanimously extended to Mr. Garrison in 1867, are here introduced. As presiding officer on the occasion, John Bright, M.P. spoke as follows:

SPEECH OF MR. BRIGHT, M.P.

The position in which I am placed this morning is one very
unusual for me, and one that I find somewhat difficult; but I
consider it a signal distinction to be permitted to take a
prominent part in the proceedings of this day, which are
intended to commemorate one of the greatest of the great
triumphs of freedom, and to do honor to a most eminent
instrument in the achievement of that freedom. (Hear, hear.)
There may be, perhaps, those who ask what is this triumph of
which I speak? To put it briefly, and, indeed, only to put one
part of it, I may say that it is a triumph which has had the
effect of raising 4,000,000 of human beings from the very lowest
depths of social and political degradation to that lofty height
which men have attained when they possess equality of rights in
the first country on the globe. (Cheers.) More than this, it is
a triumph which has pronounced the irreversible doom of slavery
in all countries and for all time. (Renewed cheers.) Another
question suggests itself--how has this great matter been
accomplished? The answer suggests itself in another question.
How is it that any great matter is accomplished? By love of
justice, by constant devotion to a great cause, and by an
unfaltering faith that that which is right will in the end
succeed. (Hear, hear.)

When I look at this hall, filled with such an assembly; when I
partake of the sympathy which runs from heart to heart at this
moment in welcome to our guest of to-day, I cannot but contrast
his present position with that which, not so far back but that
many of us can remember, he occupied in his own country. It is
not forty years ago, I believe about the year 1829, when the
guest whom we honor this morning was spending his solitary days
in a prison in the slave-owning city of Baltimore. I will not
say that he was languishing in prison, for that I do not
believe; he was sustained by a hope that did not yield to the
persecution of those who thus maltreated him; and to show that
the effect of that imprisonment was of no avail to suppress or
extinguish his ardor, within two years after that he had the
courage, the audacity--I dare say many of his countrymen used
even a stronger phrase than that--he had the courage to commence
the publication, in the city of Boston, of a newspaper devoted
mainly to the question of the abolition of slavery. The first
number of that paper, issued on the 1st January, 1831, contained
an address to the public, one passage of which I have often read
with the greatest interest, and it is a key to the future life
of Mr. Garrison. He had been complained of for having used hard
language, which is a very common complaint indeed, and he said
in his first number: "I am aware that many object to the
severity of my language, but is there not cause for such
severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as
justice. I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not
excuse, I will not retract a single inch, and I will be heard".
(Cheers.) And that, after all, expresses to a great extent the
future course of his life.

But what was at that time the temper of the people amongst whom
he lived, of the people who are glorying now, as they well may
glory, in the abolition of slavery throughout their country? At
that time it was very little better in the North than it was in
the South. I think it was in the year 1835 that riots of the
most serious character took place in some of the northern
cities; during that time Mr. Garrison's life was in the most
imminent peril; and he has never ascertained to this day how it
was that he was left alive on the earth to carry on his great
work. Turning to the South, a State that has lately suffered
from the ravages of armies, the State of Georgia, by its
legislature of House, Senate, and Governor, if my memory does
not deceive me, passed a bill, offering ten thousand dollars
reward, (Mr. Garrison here said five thousand) well, they seemed
to think there were people who would do it cheap, (laughter)
offered five thousand dollars, and zeal, doubtless, would make
up the difference, for the capture of Mr. Garrison, or for
adequate proof of his death. Now, these were menaces and perils
such as we have not in our time been accustomed to in this
country in any of our political movements, (hear, hear) and we
shall take a very poor measure indeed of the conduct of the
leaders of the emancipation party in the United States if we
estimate them by any of those who have been concerned in
political movements amongst us. But, notwithstanding all
drawbacks, the cause was gathering strength, and Mr. Garrison
found himself by and by surrounded by a small but increasing
band of men and women who were devoted to this cause, as he
himself was. We have in this country a very noble woman, who
taught the English people much upon this question, about thirty
years ago; I allude to Harriet Martineau. (Cheers.) I recollect
well the impression with which I read a most powerful and
touching paper which she had written, and which was published in
the number of the _Westminster Review_ for December, 1838. It
was entitled "The Martyr Age of the United States." The paper
introduced to the English public the great names which were
appearing on the scene in connection with this cause in America.
There was, of course I need not mention, our eminent guest of
to-day; there was Arthur Tappan, and Lewis Tappan, and James G.
Birney of Alabama, a planter and slave-owner, who liberated his
slaves and came north, and became, as I think, the first
presidential candidate upon abolition principles in the United
States. (Hear, hear.) There were besides them, Dr. Channing,
John Quincy Adams, a statesman and President of the United
States, and father of the eminent man who is now Minister from
that people amongst us. (Cheers.) Then there was Wendell
Phillips, admitted to be by all who know him perhaps the most
powerful orator who speaks the English language. (Hear, hear.) I
might refer to others, to Charles Sumner, the well-known
statesman, and Horace Greeley, I think the first of journalists
in the United States, if not the first of journalists in the
world. (Hear, hear.) But besides these, there were of noble
women not a few. There was Lydia Maria Child; there were the two
sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, ladies who came from South
Carolina, who liberated their slaves, and devoted all they had
to the service of this just cause; and Maria Weston Chapman, of
whom Miss Martineau speaks in terms which, though I do not
exactly recollect them, yet I know described her as
noble-minded, beautiful and good. It may be that there are some
of her family who are now within the sound of my voice. If it be
so, all I have to say is, that I hope they will feel, in
addition to all they have felt heretofore as to the character of
their mother, that we who are here can appreciate her services,
and the services of all who were united with her as co-operators
in this great and worthy cause. But there was another whose name
must not be forgotten, a man whose name must live for ever in
history, Elijah P. Lovejoy, who in the free State of Illinois
laid down his life for the cause. (Hear, hear.) When I read that
article by Harriet Martineau, and the description of those men
and women there given, I was led, I know not how, to think of a
very striking passage which I am sure must be familiar to most
here, because it is to be found in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
After the writer of that epistle has described the great men and
fathers of the nation, he says: "Time would fail me to tell of
Gideon, of Barak, of Samson, of Jephtha, of David, of Samuel,
and the Prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought
righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword,
out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned
to flight the armies of the aliens." I ask if this grand passage
of the inspired writer may not be applied to that heroic band
who have made America the perpetual home of freedom?
(Enthusiastic cheering.)

Thus, in spite of all that persecution could do, opinion grew in
the North in favor of freedom; but in the South, alas! in favor
of that most devilish delusion that slavery was a Divine
institution. The moment that idea took possession of the South
war was inevitable. Neither fact nor argument, nor counsel, nor
philosophy, nor religion, could by any possibility affect the
discussion of the question when once the Church leaders of the
South had taught their people that slavery was a Divine
institution; for then they took their stand on other and
different, and what they in their blindness thought higher
grounds, and they said, "Evil! be thou my good;" and so they
exchanged light for darkness, and freedom for bondage, and good
for evil, and, if you like, heaven for hell. * * * *

There was a universal feeling in the North that every care
should be taken of those who had so recently and marvellously
been enfranchised. Immediately we found that the privileges of
independent labor were open to them, schools were established in
which their sons might obtain an education that would raise them
to an intellectual position never reached by their fathers; and
at length full political rights were conferred upon those who a
few short years, or rather months, before, had been called
chattels, and things to be bought and sold in any market. (Hear,
hear.) And we may feel assured, that those persons in the
Northern States who befriended the negro in his bondage will not
now fail to assist his struggles for a higher position. * * *
* * * *

To Mr. Garrison more than any other man this is due; his is the
creation of that opinion which has made slavery hateful, and
which has made freedom possible in America. (Hear, hear.) His
name is venerated in his own country, venerated where not long
ago it was a name of obloquy and reproach. His name is venerated
in this country and in Europe wheresoever Christianity softens
the hearts and lessens the sorrows of men; and I venture to say
that in time to come, near or remote I know not, his name will
become the herald and the synonym of good to millions of men who
will dwell on the now almost unknown continent of Africa. (Loud
cheers.) * * *