had put this important voucher in type with his own hand, he subjoins this exultant paragraph:

"Rejoice, and give praise and glory to God, ye who so long and so untiringly participated in all the trials and vicissitudes of the mighty conflict. Having sown in tears, now reap in joy. Hail, redeemed, regenerated America! Hail, North and South, East and West! Hail, the cause of Peace, Liberty, Righteousness, thus mightily strengthened and signally glorified! Hail, the Present, with its transcendent claims, its new duties, its imperative obligations! Hail, the Future, with its pregnant hopes, its glorious promises, its illimitable powers of expansion and development! Hail, ye ransomed millions, no more to be chained, scourged, mutilated, bought and sold in the market, robbed of all rights, hunted as partridges upon the mountain in your flight to obtain deliverance from the house of bondage, branded and scorned as a connecting link between the human race and the brute creation! Hail, all nations, tribes, kindreds and peoples, made of one blood,' interested in a common redemption, heirs of the same immortal destiny! Hail, angels in glory, and spirits of the just made perfect, and tune your harps anew, singing, 'Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints! Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou art holy for all the nations shall come and worship before thee: for thy judgments are manifest.""

When before, in the history of the world, from Adam until this day, did any great struggle for humanity have a better beginning or a more glorious ending? And when before was it ever given to the founder of so grand a movement to live to witness its complete triumph? "This is the Lord's doing: it is marvellous in our eyes."

XXIV.

Mr. Garrison's Last Years - Tokens of Public Respect - His Activity in Reforms His Power as a Public Speaker - His Modesty

His Hopefulness - His Private and Domestic Life - His Last Illness and Death - The Funeral Services.

I BELIEVE I am warranted in saying that Mr. Garrison's course in counselling the dissolution of the anti-slavery societies, and refusing to be longer identified with them, after slavery was actually dead, though lamented by some of the truest friends of the cause, was regarded with strong approbation by the regenerated public sentiment of the country. "As he knew when and how to begin, so also he knew how and when to stop," was the tribute everywhere instinctively paid to his wisdom and self-abnegation. "He knows when his work is done, and resorts to no weak or unworthy expedients to keep himself in the public eye," was the spontaneous feeling of multitudes. Many of those who had called him "fanatic" all their lives were astonished at this proof of his sound judgment and right feeling. My own belief is, that his course in this particular greatly augmented his influence, and enabled him to do far more for the Southern freedmen than he could have done at the head of an anti-slavery society, "lingering superfluous on the stage." Certainly his name became a power in the land, such as it had never been before. His counsel upon public questions was widely sought, and his judgment held in the highest respect. Having been for half a century true to the negro as a slave, he did not forget him in his efforts for self-improvement, and

in his sufferings under other forms of tyranny; and his voice and pen were still potent in his defence. His word of indignant protest and rebuke was sure to be heard in every instance when the Government failed in its duty to those whose chains it had struck off, and it was never heard in vain.

The public respect and sympathy for him was manifested in the substantial provision made for his support during the remainder of his life. The sum of thirty thousand dollars was raised, mostly in this country, but partly in England, and presented to him on the 10th of March, 1868, in a letter signed by a committee, consisting of Samuel E. Sewall, J. Ingersoll Bowditch, William E. Coffin, William Endicott, Jr., Samuel May, Jr., Edmund Quincy, Thomas Russell, and Robert C. Waterston. John A. Andrew was the chairman of this committee at the time of his death. Among those who also lent their aid in promoting this testimonial, the names of Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson, Rev. Samuel J. May, Salmon P. Chase, Thomas D. Eliot, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John G. Whittier, Henry W. Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Attorney-General Speed, Alexander H. Rice, George S. Boutwell, Thaddeus Stevens, William D. Kelly, E. B. Washburne, William Cullen Bryant, Horace Greeley, and Gerrit Smith deserve to be mentioned. An examination of these names will show, what I have elsewhere affirmed, that those who fought slavery in the political arena, though dissenting earnestly from some of Mr. Garrison's opinions, yet held him in high esteem as the leader of the moral agitation in which anti-slavery politics had their root. Only the small men of the Republican party, and those least imbued with its distinctive principles, have ever been found denying the truth which its great founders and leaders were ever foremost to acknowledge and affii m.

The last fourteen years of Mr. Garrison's life were filled with such reformatory and philanthropic labors as his impaired health permitted him to perform. He delivered many public addresses, and wrote not a little for the press. Every struggling enterprise of reform was sure of his sympathy and co-operation. Temperance, Peace, Moral Purity, and Woman Suffrage engaged much of his attention, and his pen and voice were always at their service when required. His presence in any public assembly where he was known was sure to elicit visible tokens of popular esteem. One of the latest productions of his pen was a letter on the Chinese question, which showed how clearly he apprehended the universal bearing and application of the principles on which the anti-slavery movement was founded, and how quickly his sympathies flowed out toward all who were oppressed.

He

He was not, in the usual sense of the word, an orator; nevertheless, he was one of the most impressive and forcible public speakers to whom it has ever been my good fortune to listen. In early life, he was a complete slave to his pen; he could not trust himself to make a speech without carefully writing it out beforehand. He grew tired of this sort of slavery after a while, and resolved to emancipate himself, which he did immediately and triumphantly. found, upon trial, that thoughts and words on his favorite themes flowed freely. He was so thoroughly alive to his subject, and so intensely in earnest, that he never failed to command the sympathy and attention of his audience. His personal presence disarmed prejudice and inspired confidence, and his constant identification of himself, in thought, principle and feeling, with "those in bonds as bound with them," the clear moral insight that enabled him to comprehend principles and penetrate every disguise of sophistry and false pretence, and his strong appeals to reason

and conscience, gave him great power over men, both in public speech and private intercourse. If he lacked the resources which a classical culture alone can furnish, he possessed others of the very highest importance, and which such a culture often fails to supply. If he did not please the imagination or tickle the fancy of his hearers, he did what was better-he enlightened their minds, stirred their consciences, and swayed their judgments. No cause in his hands was ever put to shame by any hasty or ill-considered word. In dealing with opponents, his tact was unfailing. Thoughtful people especially heard him with delight, and the largest audiences felt the power of his logic and the magnetism of his voice and presence.

There was about him no taint of self-seeking, no assumption of the honors of leadership. In all my intercourse with him, extending over a period of more than forty years, I never heard him utter a word implying a consciousness that he was a leader in the cause, or that he had done or achieved anything worthy of praise. He was unfeignedly modest, with not a touch of affected humility. He had the highest appreciation of the services of others, and loved to do them honor, whether they worked by his methods or not. He never mistook a molehill for a mountain, never fought a battle save upon a vital issue. If he wrote a document for which others as well as himself were to be responsible, he would allow them to criticise, and even to pick it all to pieces, if they chose, content if no principle were dishonored. He thought little of himself, everything of the cause.

He was always courageous and hopeful. Never in a single instance did I see him in a discouraged mood. His faith in the goodness of his cause and in the overruling Providence of God was so absolute that he was calm and cheerful alike under clear or cloudy skies. I have seen him again and again when the expenses of