On my way to the “City of Brotherly Love” I joined, at New York, a number of the brethren going thither, whom I had never seen before. I studied anxiously their countenances and bearing, and caught most thirstily every word that dropped from their lips, until I was satisfied that most of them were men ready to die, if need be, in the pass of Thermopylæ.
There was a large company on the steamer that took us from New York to Elizabethtown, and again from Bordentown to Philadelphia. There was much earnest talking by other parties beside our own. Presently a gentleman turned from one of them to me and said, “What, sir, are the Abolitionists going to do in Philadelphia?” I informed him that we intended to form a National Antislavery Society. This brought from him an outpouring of the commonplace objections to our enterprise, which I replied to as well as I was able. Mr. Garrison drew near, and I soon shifted my part of the discussion into his hands, and listened with delight to the admirable manner in which he expounded and maintained the doctrines and purposes of those who believed with him that the slaves--the blackest of them--were men, entitled as much as the whitest and most exalted men in the land to their liberty, to a residence here, if they choose, and to acquire as much wisdom, as much property, and as high a position as they may.
After a long conversation, which attracted as many as could get within hearing, the gentleman said, courteously: “I have been much interested, sir, in what you have said, and in the exceedingly frank and temperate manner in which you have treated the subject. If all Abolitionists were like you, there would be much less opposition to your enterprise. But, sir, depend upon it, that hair-brained, reckless, violent fanatic, Garrison will damage, if he does not shipwreck, any cause.” Stepping forward, I replied, “Allow me, sir, to introduce you to Mr. Garrison, of whom you entertain so bad an opinion. The gentleman you have been talking with is he.” I need not describe, you can easily imagine, the incredulous surprise with which this announcement was received. And so it has been from the beginning until now. Those who have only heard of Mr. Garrison, and have believed the misrepresentations of his enemies, have supposed him to be “a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” But those who have become most intimately acquainted with him have found him to be “as harmless as a dove,” though indeed “as wise as a serpent.”