E449 ^ ■ "^^r <^°^ ^^ V^ .0* <* °'^^^^* >' •^'\' ,-<=• v/^, ■•- 6** ,5 °^. \^-i^ ^u c ^^. ...^ ^"--^^ ' ,0^ 'bv ^- "^r ■^ ^>. '^^ V "^j .^; t^o^ xOvl o. WILLIAIVI LLOYO GARHIbUN. Acl. 7i. From Ike hint by A nne Whitney, 1S7S. TRIBUTES WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, FUNERAL SERVICES, MAY 28, 1879. BOSTON: HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY, C|)e Eibcrsttic Press, Cambriiffc. 1879. The Riverside Press, Cambrit/ge. Printed by II. Houghton and Company. -;;-■■«•::,: j™;;!'; X here is one whose eonscienee was a iana.a* to his country a„a his age; voice of the bette. soul ot,e™b. lie in its day of degeneracy, summoun.g .t to t''etos^^ .elf.efonnationaeen,eain,poss^h^^^^^^^^^^^^ . 1 !.;„ f^B« Here is a conscience that nevei, foreign or domestic oes. Here eonditions r™r\:rL: o^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -t integrity .vhich IrJl s'acrifices gain, and knew ^^^^^^^^ LV, l^c, of Dower, — a conscience whose untaltenng io„ i' iriell^ll heUl its -t against such fid.ac.es a^^^^^ LEMARKS OF REV. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 21 all organized powers corrupt and blind, to reach and sum- mon a living truth which was its one direct opposite and only cure, — a conscience great enough to comprehend by instinct the identity of that truth with all others that go to make up the dignity of man, to strike the one saving track which included all others, intellectual and spiritual, made possible by the matchless opportunities of the age and the land, and to gather around the movement for which it stood the noblest brotherhood of heart and purpose, in the guard- ianship of a great constructive idea ; one of those rally- ing-points for culture, for patriotism, for public vii'tue, without whose continued inspiration the soul of a nation perishes from the earth. Above all, here was a conscience greatest in this, that it took its rise in love ; so that in the crowning unity and even identity of these two, his love nourishing his conscience and his conscience illuminating his love, neither could stray from the other, in the central current of his universal work, be- set though it was by surface eddies and strifes inseparable from the stress of a revolution ; teeming with possible dif- ferences of judgment and conflicts of duty that no man could control and no man fully comprehend. Pity for the suffering and justice to human nature; the oppressed to be succored and the moral order to be obeyed to the last tittle ; the soul of the poor to be delivered from the jaws of the spoiler, and the logic of retribution to be enforced that makes men and nations reap as they have sown, — these two sides were with him identical in substance and in force. Their union was the burden of his prophecy, and kept it matched with the broadening interests and demands of the struggle. From the moment when, almost single-handed, he brought the victim of a blind greed and a blinder piety 22 FUNERAL OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. face to face with his oppressoi-, amidst the fury of mobs and the contempt of their educators, — and ever since blood and fire, purging every institution and trying every soul, have come to the rescue of duties his little band of heroic men and "women had pleaded for in vain, — that divine identity of justice and mercy which he made his own has gone on, step by step, to prove itself the master of the age. And its latest admonition is as impressive as was the first. Tiiat toil-spent frame, borne downward to its rest, while the spirit bated not a jot of vision or of love, admonishes us to heed the warning he roused himself from pain and W'Cakness to lift in the hearing of the people, — not to ig- nore alike their past experience and their present condi- tion in the vanity of trusting only that which they desire to believe. How vast the band of mourners assembled in our thought around this spirit's unseen transition ! To how very few has it been given in human history' to enshrine their obse- quies in the blessings of an emancipated race ! And what witnesses to this man's heroic helpfulness, gathered from be- yond the seas, from cottage and from court, from masters of men and followers of freedom, from all who lead humanity and all who watch and labor for the coming of its universal religion that shall know no binding creed, no vjiin super- stition, no dividing lines of comnnmion ! Long shall we listen ere we shall fully appreciate the glad tidings of these messengers, beautiful on the mountains of a nation's grati- tude, of a world's memory. From that yet unrelieved race in whose service his life was spent, whose feet still stumble in the wilderness, whose hearts quake with the new perils into which our half- policies have brought them, there is yet to come the tribute which only a portion can render now ; REMARKS OF REV. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 23 for no coming tribulations, if such must be, will restrain the natural current of their gratitude to the name of this man, as one who of his own self-prompted love did for them in the days of their utter friendlessness a work more worthy of their homage than any later work of parties, statesmen, generals, armies or proclamations performed when the jus- tice long refused was extorted from an unwilling people by forces they could no longer resist. It is but too easy for a generation conversant only with political and military deal- ings with slavery, to disparage the moral protest and perma- nent educational power of the great abolition movement which for more than thirty year's rocked the foundation of church and state with its leaven of righteous appeal. But it will not be so in the days to come. The soul of the peo- ple was lifted by that steadfast pressure of an eternal prin- ciple, in which the noblest men and women bore their equal part ; though nothing but the thunder of invasion and over- turn could rouse its physical might for the final struggle. Nor can I grant that this our friend's departure closes an epoch of national history ; that we are passing into another, with new motives, methods, issues, arguments, and duties. No great epoch closes with the close of any human eyes in death. Not by such a figure shall we escape unfinished tasks ; not so suddenly dismiss the still-needed service of ideas, or of the men who have represented them. The gospel of the nation's duty and opportunity finds no new inter- pretation ; the old lessons stand fast, as the old policies and their perils return. It is the vice of our perfunctory politics that we expect fresh inspiration before we have learned to accept and honor what is already given ; that we expect to advance upon the airy trestle-work of stilted desires instead of the firm-laid track of duties done. 24 FUNERAL OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. A nation's growth is by stages where representatives come and go. But principles hold fast on its reluctance till they have shaped it to their law ; they forgive no broken jjromise, suffer no dropped threads in the woof of duty. The great Anti-Slavery message which its ever-hopeful prophet once thought had been heard and heeded, he himself found it his necessity to renew. New men and new occasions succeed the old ; but the epoch ends not till its idea is enthroned. No man is omniscient ; no man is faultless ; no prophet can foretell how the great sin of an age shall be put away ; but this cry that it must be put away, and that utterly and speedily, before aught else can prosper, — this will not cease till it is accomplished. What Garrison hoped from the sword of the spirit was found to require the sword of the flesh. But the prophet's limitations must not disparage his truth. Nor let the inevitable conditions on which his great censorship of established beliefs and institutions was lent make men unjust to his spirit, as somewhat that has had its day. Centered in the absolutism of a moral idea which would take no qualification from his desire or will, he could seem severe and strenuous in exacting its claim on the opin- ions of others. But who that knew him could doubt that tenderness and charity were the tidal wave that floated even his sternest denunciations of individual conduct, still more tlie emphasis of his argument for personal opinion with valued friends ? I do not forget that we are here to speak to private hearts, to a sense of domestic and personal bereavement that must overflow for the moment even the best appreciation of this public example and incalculable help. What can we do but bring full sheaves of a long-cherished sympathy with your memories of the unfailinfr liirht and sweetness that made REMARKS OF REV. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 25 this large household the seed-ground of high ideals and united desires; the centre of communion for all generous hopes and plans for human weal ! With you we recall the simplicity of faith and feeling that kept its freshness alike in the in- dignation of a holy war and in the happy play of friendship and domestic life ; the inevitable spontaneity that always distinguishes moral genius from the common moralism that is trained by rules. We recall with you that swift and never-failing appreciation which welcomed, as I almost be- lieve, every faithful word that ever, throughout our struggle, fully broke the weak or criminal silence of pulpit and press ; that unfaltering trust that suffered no knees to weaken, no heart to flag, in the darkest hour ; and we recall with you the tender solicitude with which he guarded your integrity of conviction as his own. Never, surely, has it spoken so sublimely in your hearts as now that it is no longer an outward reliance, but a sure possession, and dear to the maturer love and liberty to which it led your way. And now that ripe integrity of soul has passed to its invisi- ble service in all its fullness, before its fire was dimmed by age, or its rod of power broken, or its clear vision impaired; without one fear or doubt or backward step to mar its unity or enfeeble the sense of its presence and its power. Can you, can we, ask for more than such euthanasi/ to crown the prophet, the father, the friend ? Our fairest households must be scattered ; our dearest communion fronts the hour of death ; every possession ripens into a renunciation ; the tree our ancestors planted outlasts our lifetimes as it did theirs ; the pictures that report our likeness seem to be the substance, we the shadows ; the longest day allotted for a man to work in is even fleeter now than it was in the unhurried ages when poets could 26 FUNERAL OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. liken it to notliing less swift in flight than the weaver's shuttle. Our bitter partings are the sure surrenders of our best to the friendly bosom of unseen laws into whose depths our own souls hasten to fall. But if what men know of truth, and justice, and beauty, and love, be real, then the truth and justice and love that men are, is immortal. For if we know only in part, yet are we of one spii'it and one substance with what we know, if our knowing is but life and power. To know and to be known, by participation in that which outlives lifetimes, policies, institutions, and holds men responsil)le to their best, and to the unity of each with all, is what in all ages has been believed to have conquered death. Blest is he among men whose ample and adequate task, nobly chosen, greatly loved and greatly achieved, shall live as a reality after him in those whom he loved and gave himself to serve ! And most blest among these are they in whose hearts that task and triumph abide, as the dear familiar light of a day that has shone through all their lives. There is no Rock of Ages but the living heart and mind of man ! " God blesses still the generous thought; And still the fitting word He speeds; And truth at his requiring taught lie quickens into deeds. " Where is the victory of the grave ? Wliat dust upon the spirit lies ? God keeps the sacred life He gave ; The prophet never dies." I have the honor to read to you a few tribute verses written for this occasion by John G. Whittier : — VERSES BY JOHN G. WHITTIER. 27 GARRISON. The storm and peril overpast, The houpdiiig hatred shamed and still, Go, soul of freedom ! take at last The place which thou alone canst fill. Confirm the lesson taught of old — Life saved for self is lost, while they Who lose it in His service hold The lease of God's eternal day. Not for thyself, but for the slave Thy words of thunder shook the world ; No selfish griefs or hatred gave The strength wherewith thy bolts were hurled. From lips that Sinai's trumpet blew We heard a tenderer undersong ; Thy very wrath from pity grew, From love of man thy hate of wrong. Now past and present are as one ; The life below is life above; Thy mortal years have but begun The immortality of love. With somewhat of thy lofty faith We lay thy outworn garment by. Give death I)ut what belongs to death. And life the life that cannot die ! Not for a soul like thine the calm Of selfish ease and joys of sense ; But duty, more than crown or palm, Its own exceeding recompense. 28 FUNERAL OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. Go up and on ! thy day well done, Its morning promise well fulfilled, Arise to triumphs yet unwon, To holier tasks that God has willed. Go, leave behind thee all that mars The work below of man for man ; With the white legions of the stars Do service such as angels can. Wherever wrong shall right deny. Or suffering spirits urge their plea, Be thine a voice to smite the lie, A hand to set the captive free ! The quartette then sang, to the tune of "Lenox," the hymn commencing, "Ye tribes of Adam, join:" — " Ye tribes of Adam, join With heaven and earth and seas, And offer notes divine To your Creator's praise ; Ye holy throng of angels bright, In worlds of light begin the song. " The shining worlds above In glorious order stand. Or in swift courses move, Hy his supreme command: He spake the word, and all their frame From nothing came, to praise the Lord. " Let all the nations fear The God who rules above ; He brings his people near. And makes them taste his love : While earth and sky attempt his praise, His saints shall raise his honors hijrli." REMARKS OF THEODORE D. WELD. 29 Theodore D. Weld next addressed the congregation. REMARKS OF THEODORE D. WELD. Friends, you have just heard the lines, written perhaps to-day, perhaps yesterday, by our own beloved poet, Whittier. I have in my hand a poem which he wrote almost fifty years ago, in the darkest hour of the midnight which brooded over our country. You are most of you, perhaps all, familiar with it. It is addressed to Mr. Garrison. Shall I read a single stanza ? I do it to illustrate a point strongly put by our brother who has just taken his seat ; that is, the power of a single soul, alone ^ of a single soul touched with sacred fire, a soul all of whose powers are enlisted, — the thought, the feeling, the susceptibility, the emotion, the indomitable will, the conscience that never shrinks, and always points to duty, — I say, the power which God has lodged in the hu- man mind, enabling it to do and to dare and to suffer every- thing, and thank God for the privilege of doing it. To show also how, when one soul is thus stirred in its innermost and to its uttermost, it is irresistible ; that wherever there are souls, here and there, and thick and fast, too, not merely one, and another, and another, of the great mass, but multi- tudes of souls are ready to receive the truth and welcome it, to incorporate it into their thought and feeling, to live and die for it. That was the effect of Garrison upon the soul of Whittier. He here gives us his testimony. The date of this is 1833, — almost fifty years ago. He says in the third stanza, — *' I love thee with a brother's love, I feel my pulses thrill », To mark thy spirit soar above The cloud of human ill. 30 FUNERAL OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. My heart hath leaped to answer thine, And echo back thy words, As leaps the warrior's at the shine And flash of kindred swords ! " Friends, in recounting the multiform cords upon which our great brother struck, and in following out those vibra- tions until we see them rouse the nation's heart, — in doing this we come to a point where we stand amazed beyond our belief ; we have seen nothing like it ; we have thought of nothing like it ; we know of nothing like it in the his- tory of tlie world ; where, on moral grounds, through the dictate of conscience, through the grasp of the intuitions, such force has been given to a single soul as to make it omnipotent. No wonder that the old prophet broke out, " I said, Ye are gods ! " When God pulsates in a human soul, God is there. Not the Infinite God, the eternal existence, but the power of God ; that which Jesus felt when He said, " To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, to bear witness unto the truth ; " and " the words I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." Think for a moment of Garrison, through his paper and by his speech, traversing the country, uttering words which fell with such force as to break the spell that was upon souls, rouse the latent and dormant and bring them to life, gird them with power, and put weapons into their lumds, arming them from head to foot, to go forth and fight in the moral warfare ! It has been said by those who have preceded me, that we are not here to mourn. In looking over tliis congrega- tion, I do not see a single face that seems to mourn. It is no hour for mourning. Why should we mourn here when they are exulting there ? When they are receiving him with greetings and with songs of joy upon their lips, and I REMARKS OF THEODORE D. WELD. 31 putting the crown upon his head ! " Well-dones " and " Welcomes " are echoing there : why should be wailing here? We cannot wail. We are here to rejoice. We are here to make this a solemn and glorious festival of the spirit. We are here to thank God and take courage that such a man has lived. In de.vout gratitude we bow before Him, saying: "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and thanks- giving to Him that sitteth upon the throne, that He hath given us, given this nation, given the world, so precious a thing as a human soul such as animated that form which lies motionless there." Let us rejoice ! Tears will come to our eyes, but they are not tears of bereavement. If we have grief, it is the joy of grief. They are tears of love ; they are tears of s^Mnpathy ; they are tears of exultation. Blessed are we that we have lived at the same time when there walked the earth such a man as WiLLTAM Lloyd Garrison. We did not know him. Those that knew him best did not know his innermost and his uttermost. The world around did not know him, even those who most appreciated him. Fifty years hence there will be something written about Garrison that will show what no one has exhibited or can exhibit now, for then time enough will have elapsed for his influ- ence, the power of his soul, for those vast pulsations, so far- reaching, — time enough to trace out all those lines of in- fluence and show how they stamped hearts innumerable, and how they can be traced in vast and manifold effects. Great as the direct influence of the life of Garrison was, great as it is to the multitudes of the freedmen of the South who rise up to testify, great as is the direct influence which out- poured from his life, the indirect influences seem almost greater. He saw, at one of the main points of the human 32 FUNERAL OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. circle, something which compelled his attention, something which could not be ignoi'ed, which should not be left any longer ; and he lifted up his voice and cried out against it, beseeched, appealed, and summoned up help from every quarter, and touched with such force as no man else could the springs that could accomplish his object, — the abolition of slavery. But that was only one point in the great circle of human interests, human rights, and human well-being. Now, indi- rectly, this line being traversed as he traversed it, — all the light thrown upon rights that he threw, -^ why, it led to other points of the circle ; and then, as has been alluded to by our sister here, in considering the question of rights, what they are, it was seen that self-right is the foundation of all right, the nucleus, the centre, from which all other rights radiate ; that it is really the trunk of tlie tree of all rights, and that every other right is a mere relative right to self- right, in the centre ; and that the great heart that animates that right in the centre is mi/self. Take away the right to mi/self, and where is my right to my coat, or my book, or my anything else ? It is nothing ; it is uprooted and cast away to wither ! He brought his mind to a focus upon the fundamental right, the intrinsic, the absolute, the eternal, the ineradicable right — self-right. And that was the rea- son why he uttered what are called such hard words about slaveholding. It was the same conviction tliat hred the soul of old John Wesley, — blessings on him ! — when he said, " Shivery is the sum of all villanies ! " No wonder he used words that sounded hard to those very soft and shrink- ing people wlio loved smooth things, and to those who sym- pathized with slavery. Why, when he saw the slaveholder not merely asserting his right to a man as a piece of prop- REMARKS OF THEODORE D. WELD. 33 erty, but when lie saw him stalking over all this New Eng- land and claiming the right to absorb into himself the self- right of another self and call it his, make it an article of property, and send it to the auction-block, no wonder he roused at length the North, no wonder the slaveholders put a price upon his head, because there he touched the apple of their eye. He had struck the very heart of the monster. It was a death-blow, and that must be fended off, or all must be given up. Friends, you have been detained long already. I ought not to keep you from those words to which you are waiting to listen, fi'om our brother who, more than any one else, struck blows and uttered words such as no other could ex- cept the great leader, — uttered words, gave a testimony, and stamped an impression upon the nation's heart. You want to hear him, and not to hear me. But let me ask your patience for a moment longer. Some have said, we are not here to eulogize our brother. It really seems as though words were very weak in eulogy of William Lloyd Gakrisox. The truth is, we are shut up to the necessity of praising him. We cannot speak his name but it is the highest praise that can be given him. Who does not recog- nize that ? Who can speak of a single one of his acts with- out that act rising up and testifying to what he was, to what he is, to what he has done, and what no other man did or could do ? No, it is all around, from centre to circum- ference alike ! See how the whole land is strewn with his deeds ! See how the very air breathes of them ! See how the very tones of the wind, as they go through the forest, shout them I The fact is, nothing that he has done can be spoken of that is not a eulogy. And yet, if those cold lips could move and utter words, it seems to me they would say, 3 34 FUNERAL OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. " 111 tins hour let eulog3^ be dumb ! " Blessed brother ! we would let eulogy be dumb, if it were possible. But then we must stand dumb ourselves. We can say nothing at such a time as this if we cannot speak of what he has done, and every act is a eulogy. Why, those words that were re- peated by our brother who has addressed you, — what mar- velous words they were ! Marvelous they will be forever. Let us for a moment look back fifty yeai's. We see. a church dead ! Not merely blind and palsied, but dead to the sin of slavery. Whatever life it had, there was no pulsation indicating that it realized the sin of slavery. Look back there ! What do we see ? A great bank of darkness, in which the church lies dead ; and as we look, we see a single hand unshrinkingl}' thrust out from the thickest of that darkness and writing a dozen simple words, little fireside words ; writing them so large that they can be seen and read from far. We see those words take on a glow in the midst of the very darkness. We see those letters every one turned to a letter of fire. And what was written there? You have heard them already ; you know them by heart : "/am in earnest. I ivill not equivocate — / will not excuse — I ivitl not retreat a single inch — and I will be heard ! " Take the circumstances and conditions of the time in which they were uttered, consider the great soul that propelled them forth, consider that he felt the necessity upon him and a woe unto him if he did not utter them, — consider all this, and then tell me whether such words have ever been uttered by other mortal lips ! Those words were the passwords of Lib- erty. They were the keynote, struck by him so loud that they startled the nation. Thank God that there was one man in those times who could utter them ; who had a soul large enough, deep enough, strong enough, fired enough, godlike enough, to utter them ! REMARKS OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. 35 The quartette then sang the following hymn, the congre- gation spontaneously rising and joining in singing the fa- miliar words, to the tune of " Amsterdam : " — " Rise, my soul ! and stretch thy wings, — Thy better portion trace ; Rise, from transitory things, Towards heaven, thy native place. Sun and moon and stars decay, Time shall soon this earth remove ; Rise, my soul ! and haste away To seats prepared above. " Rivers to the ocean run. Nor stay in all their course ; Fire ascending seeks the sun, — Both speed them to their source : So a soul that 's born of God Pants to view his glorious face, Upward tends to his abode, To rest in his embrace." REMARKS OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. It has been well said that we are not here to weep, and neither are we here to praise. No life closes without sad- ness. Death, after all, no matter what hope or what mem- ories surround it, is terrible and a mystery. We never part hands that have been clasped life-long in loving tenderness but the hour is sad ; still, we do not come here to weep. In other moments, elsewhere, we can offer tender and lov- ing sympathy to those whose roof-tree is so sadly bereaved. But in the spirit of the great life which we commemorate, this hour is for the utterance of a lesson ; this hour is given 36 FUNERAL OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. to contemplate a grand example, a rich inheritance, a noble life worthily ended. You come together, not to pay tribute, even loving tribute, to the friend you have lost, whose feat- ures you will miss from daily life, but to remember the grand lesson of that career ; to speak to each other and to emphasize what that life teaches, — especially in the hearing of these young listeners, who did not see that marvelous career ; in their hearing to construe the meaning of the great name which is borne world-wide, and tell them why on both sides the ocean, the news of his death is a matter of interest to every lover of his race. As my friend said, we have no right to be silent. Those of us who stood near him, who witnessed the secret springs of his action, the consistent in- ward and outward life, have no right to be silent. The hirgest contribution that will ever be made by any single man's life to the knowledge of the working of our institu- tions will be the picture of his career. He sounded the depths of the weakness, he proved the ultimate strength, of republican institutions ; he gave us to know the perils that confront us ; he taught us to rally the strength that lies hid. To my mind there are three remarkable elements in his career. One is rare even among great men. It was his own moral nature, unaided, uninfluenced from outside, that consecrated him to a great idea. Other men ripen gradu- ally. The youngest of the great American names that will be compared with his was between thirty and forty when his first anti-slavery word was uttered. Luther was thirty- four years old when an infamous enterprise woke him to in- dignation, and it then took two years more to reveal to him the mission God designed for him. This man was in jail for his opinions when he was just twenty-four. He had REMARKS BY WENDELL PHILLIPS. 37 confronted a nation in the very bloom of his youth. It could be said of him more than of any other American in our day, and more than of any great leader that I chance now to remember in any epoch, that he did not need cir- cumstances, outside influence, some great pregnant event to press him into service, to provoke him to thought, to kindle him into enthusiasm. His moral nature was as mar- velous as was the intellect of Pascal. It seemed to be born fully equipped, " finely touched." Think of the mere dates ; tliink that at some twenty-four years old, while Christian- ity and statesmanship, the experience, the genius of the land, were wandering in the desert, aghast, amazed, and confounded over a frightful evil, a great sin, this boy sounded, found, invented the talisman, " Immediate, unconditional emancipation on the soil." You may say he borrowed it — true enough — from the lips of a woman on the other side of the Atlantic, but he was the only American whose moral nature seemed, just on the edge of life, so perfectly open to duty and truth that it answered to the far-off bugle- note, and proclaimed it instantly as a complete solution of the problem. Young men, you have no conception of the miracle of that insight ; for it is not given to you to remember with any vividness the blackness of the darkness of ignorance and indifference which then brooded over what was called the moral and religious element of the American people. When I think of him, as Melancthon said of Luther, "day by day grows the wonder fresh " at the ripeness of the moral and intellectual life that God gave him at the very opening. You hear that boy's lips announcing the statesmanlike solution which startled politicians and angered church and 38 FUNERAL OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. people. A year afterwards, with equally single-hearted devotion, in words that have been so often quoted, with those dungeon doors behind him, he enters on his career. In January, 1831, then twenty-five years old, he starts the publication of the " Liberator," advocating the immediate abolition of slavery ; and, with the sublime pledge, " I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to speak or write with modera- tion. 1 will not equivocate — I will not exc^ise — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.-" Then began an agitation which for the marvel of its origin, the majesty of its purpose, the earnestness, unself- ishness and ability of its appeals, the vigor of its assault, the deep national convulsion it caused, the vast and benefi- cent changes it wrought, and its wide-spread, indirect in- fluence on all kindred moral questions, is without a parallel in history since Luther. This boy created and marshaled it. His converts held it up and carried it on. Before this, all through the preceding centur}^ there had been among us scattered and single abolitionists, earnest and able men ; sometimes, like Wythe of Virginia, in high places. The Quakers and Covenanters had never intermitted their testi- mony against slavery. But Garrison was the first man to begin a movement designed to annihilate slavery. He an- nounced the principle, arranged the method, gathered the forces, enkindled the zeal, started the argument, and finally marshaled the nation for and against the system in a con- flict that came near rending the Union. I marvel again at the instinctive sagacity which discerned the hidden forces fit for such a movement, called them forth, and wielded them to such prompt results, Archimedes said, " Give me a spot and I will move the world." O'Connell REMARKS OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. 39 leaned back on three millions of Irishmen, all on five with sjnnpathy. Cobden's hands Avere held up by the whole manufactnring interest of Great Britain; his treasury was the wealth of tlie middle classes of the country, and behind him also, in fair proportion, stood the religious convictions of England. Marvelous was their agitation ; as you gaze upon it in its successive stages and analyze it, you are as- tonished at what they invented for tools. But this boy stood alone ; utterly alone, at first. There was no sympathy anywhere ; his hands were empty ; one single penniless comrade was his only helper. Starving on bread and water, he could command the use of types, that was all. Trade endeavored to crush him ; the intellectual life of America disowned him. My friend Weld has said the chvirch was a thick bank of black cloud looming over him. Yes. But no sooner did the church discern the impetuous boy's purpose than out of that dead, sluggish cloud thundered and lightened a ma- lignity which could not find words to express its hate. The very pulpit where I stand saw this apostle of liberty and justice sore beset, always in great need, and often in deadly peril ; yet it never gave him one word of approval or sym- pathy. During all his weary struggle, Mr. Garrison felt its weight in the scale against him. In those years it led the sect which arrogates to itself the name of Liberal. If this was the bearing of so-called Liberals, what bitterness of opposition, judge ye, did not the others show ? A mere boy confronts church, commerce, and college ; a boy, with neither training nor experience ! Almost at once the as- sault tells ; the whole country is hotly interested. What created such life under those ribs of death ? Whence came that instinctive knowledge ? Where did he get that sound 40 FUNERAL OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. common sense ? Whence did he summon that abnost un- erring sagacity which, starting agitation on an untried field, never committed an error, provoking year by year addi- tional enthusiasm ; gathering, as he advanced, helper after helper to his side ! I marvel at the miraculous boy. He had no means. Where he got, whence he summoned, how he created, the elements which changed 1830 into 1835 — 1830 apathy, indifference, ignorance, icebergs, into 1835, evei-y man intelligently hating him, and mobs assaulting him in every city — is a marvel which none but older men than I can adequately analyze and explain. He said to a friend who remonstrated with him on the heat and severity of his language, " Brother, I have need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice about me to melt." Well, that dungeon of 1830, that universal apathy, that deadness of soul, tiiat contempt of what called itself intellect, in ten years he changed into the whole country aflame. He made every single home, press, pulpit, and senate-chamber a de- bating society, with Ids right and wrong for the subject. And as was said of Luther, " God honored him by making all the worst men his enemies." Fastened on that daily life was a malignant attention and criticism such as no American has ever endured. I will not call it a criticism of hate ; that word is not strong enough. Malignity searched him with candles from the moment he uttered that God-given solution of the prob- lem to the moment when he took the hand of the nation and wrote out the statute which mad(» it law. jNIalignity searched those forty years with candles, and yet even ma- lignity has never lisped a suspicion, much less a charge — never lisped a suspicion of anything mean, dishonorable, dishonest. No man, however mad with hate, however fierce REMARKS OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. 41 in assault, ever dared to hint that there was anything low in motive, false in assertion, selfish in purpose, dishonest in method — never a stain on the thought, the word, or the deed. Now contemplate this boy entering such an arena, con- fronting a nation and all its forces, utterly poor, with no sympathy from any quarter, conducting an angry, wide- spread, and profound agitation for ten, twenty, forty years, amid the hate of everything strong in American life, and the contempt of everything influential, and no stain, not the slightest shadow of one, rests on his escutcheon ! Summon me the public men, the men who have put their hands to the helm of the vessel of state since 1789, of whom that can be said, although love and admiration, which almost culminated in worship, attended the steps of some of them. Then look at the work he did. My friends have spoken of his influence. What American ever held his hand so long and so powerfully on the helm of social, intellectual, and moral America ? There have been giants in our day. Great men God has granted in widely different spheres; earnest men, men whom public admiration lifted early into power. I shall venture to name some of them. Perhaps you will say it is not usual on an occasion like this, but lono-waitiup; truth needs to be uttered in an hour when this great example is still absolutely indispensable to in- spire the effort, to guide the steps, to cheer the hope, of the nation not yet arrived in the promised land. I want to show you the vast breadth and depth that this man's name signifies. We have had Webster in the Senate ; we have had Lyman Beecher in the pulpit ; we have had Caliioun at' the head of a section ; we have had a philosopher at Con- cord with his inspiration penetrating the young mind of the 42 FUNERAL OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. Northern States. They are the four men that history, per- haps, will mention somewhere near the great force whose closing in this scene we commemorate to-day. Remember now not merel}' the inadequate means at this man's con- trol, not simply the bitter hate that he confronted, not the vast work that he must be allowed to have done, — surely vast, when measured by the opposition he encountered and the strength he held in his hands, — but dismissing all those considerations, measuring nothing but the breadth and depth of his hold, his grasp on American character, social change, and general progress, what man's signet has been set so deep, planted so forever on the thoughts of his epoch ? Trace home intelligently, trace home to their sources, the changes social, political, intellectual and religious, that have come over us during the last fifty j'ears, — the volcanic convulsions, the stormy waves which have tossed and rocked our genera- tion, — and you will find close at the sources of the Mis- sissippi this boy with his proclamation I The great party that put on record the statute of freedom was made up of men whose conscience he quickened and whose intellect he inspired, and they long stood the tools of a public opinion that he created. The grandest name be- side his in the America of our times is that of John Brown. Brown stood on the platform that Garrison built ; and Mrs. Stowe herself charmed an audience that he gathered for her, with words which he inspired, from a heart that he kindled. Sitting at his feet were leaders born of the " Lib- erator," the guides of public sentiuient. I know whereof I affirm. It was often a pleasant boast of Charles Sumner that he read the " Liberator " two years before I did, and among the great men who followed his lead and held up his hands in Massachusetts, where is the intellect, where is the REMARKS OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. 43 lieart that does not trace to this printer boy the first pulse that bade him serve the slave ? For myself, no words can adequately tell the measureless debt I owe him, the moral and intellectual life he opened to me. I feel like the old Greek, who, taught himself by Socrates, called his own scholars "the disciples of Socrates." This is only another instance added to the roll of the Washingtons and the Hampdens, whose root is not ability, but character ; that influence which, like the great Mas- ter's of Judea (humanly speaking), spreading through the centuries, testifies that the world suffers its grandest changes not by genius, but by the more potent control of character. His was an earnestness that would take no denial, that consumed opposition in the intensity of its convictions, that knew nothing but right. As friend after friend gathered slowly, one by one, to his side, in that very meeting of a dozen heroic men, to form the New England Anti-Slavery Society, it was his compelling hand, his resolute unwilling- ness to temper or qualify the utterance, that finally dedi- cated that first organized movement to the doctrine of im- mediate emancipation. He seems to have understood — this boy without experience — he seems to have understood by instinct that righteousness is the only thing wliicli will finally compel submission ; that one, with God, is always a majority. He seems to have known it at the very outset, taught of God, the herald and champion, God-endowed and God-sent to arouse a nation, that only by the most absolute assertion of the uttermost truth, without qualification or compromise, can a nation be waked to conscience or strength- ened for duty. No man ever understood so thoroughly — not O'Connell, nor Cobden — the nature and needs of that agitation which alone, in our day, reforms states. In the 44 FUNERAL, OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. darkest liour he never doubted the omnipotence of conscience and the moral sentiment. And then look at the unquailing courage with which he faced the successive obstacles that confronted him ! jNIodest, believing at the outset that America could not be as cor- rupt as she seemed, he wails at the door of the churches, importunes leading chirgymen, begs for a voice from the sanctuary, a consecrated protest from the pulpit. To his utter amazement, he learns, by thus probing it, that the church will give him no help, but, on the contrary, surges into the moveuient in opposition. Serene, though astounded by the unexpected revelation, he simply turns his footsteps, and announces that " a Christianity which keeps peace with the oppressor is no Christianity," and goes on his way to supplant the religious element which the church had allied with sin by a deeper religious faith. Yes, he sets himself to work, this stripling with his sling confronting the angry giant in complete steel, this solitary evangelist, to make Christians of twenty millions of people ! I am not ex- aggerating. You know, older men, who can go back to that period ; I know that when one, kindred to a voice that you have heard to-day, whose pathway Garrison's bloody feet had made easier for the treading, when he uttei'ed in a pul- ])it in Boston only a few strong words, injected in the course of a sermon, his venerable father, between seventy and eighty years, was met the next morning and his hand shaken by a much moved friend. " Colonel, you have my sympathy. I cannot tell you how much I pity you." "What," said the brusque old man, " what is your pity ?" ''Well, I hear your son went crazy at 'Church Green' yesterday." Such was the utter indifference. At that time, bloody feet had smoothed the pathway for other men to REMARKS OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. 45 tread. Still, then and for years afterwards, insanity was the only kind-hearted excuse that partial friends could find for sympathy with such a madman ! If anything strikes one more prominently than another in this career — to your astonishment, young men, you may say — it is the plain, sober common sense, the robust English element which underlay Cromwell, which explains Hamp- den, which gives the color that distinguishes 1640 in Eng- land from 1790 in France. Plain, robust, well-balanced common sense. Nothing erratic ; no enthusiasm which had lost its hold on firm earth ; no mistake of method ; no unmeasured confidence; no miscalculation of the enemy's strength. Whoever mistook. Garrison seldom mistook. Fewer mistakes in that long agitation of fifty years can be charged to his account than to any other American. Erratic as men supposed him, intemperate in utterance, mad in judg- ment, an enthusiast gone crazy, the moment you sat down at his side, patient in explanation, clear in statement, sound in judgment, studying carefully every step, calculating every assault, measuring the force to meet it, never in haste, al- ways patient, waiting until the time ripened, — fit for a great leader. Cull, if you please, from the statesmen who obeyed him, whom he either whipped into submission or summoned into existence, cull from among them the man whose career, fairly examined, exhibits fewer miscalcula- tions and fewer mistakes than .this cai'eer which is just ended. I know what I claim. As Mr. Weld has said, I am speaking to-day to men who judge by their ears, by rumors; who see, not with their eyes, but with their prejudices. His- tory, fifty years hence, dispelling your prejudices, will do justice to the grand sweep of the orbit which, as my friend 46 FUNERAL OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. said, to-day we are hardly in a position, or mood, to meas- ure. As Coleridge avers, " The truth-haters of to-morrow will ffive the right name to the truth haters of to-dav, for even such men the stream of time bears onward." I do not fear that if my words are remembered by the next gener- ation they will be thought unsupported or extravagant. When history seeks the sources of New England character, when men begin to open up and examine the hidden springs and note the convulsions and the throes of American life within the last half century, they will remember Parker, that Jupiter of the pulpit ; they will remember the long unheeded but measureless influence that came to us from the seclusion of Concord ; they will do justice to the mas- terly statesmanship which guided, during a part of his life, the efforts of Webster, but they will recognize that there was only one man north of Mason and Dixon's line who met squarely, with an absolute logic, the else impregnable position of John C. Calhoun ; only one brave, far-sighted, keen, logical intellect, which discerned that there were only two moral points in the universe, right and ivrong ; that when one was asserted, subterfuge and evasion would be sure to end in defeat. Here lie the brain and the heart ; here lies the statesman- like intellect, logical as Jonathan Edwards, brave as Lu- ther, which confronted tlie logic of South Carolina with an assertion direct and broad enough to make an issue and necessitate a conflict of two civilizations. Calhoun said, Slavery is right. Webster and Clay shrunk from him and evaded his assertion. Garrison, alone at that time, met him face to face, proclaiming slavery a sin and daring all the inferences. It is true, as New Orleans complains to-day in her journals, that this man brought upon America every- REMARKS OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. 47 thing they call the disaster of the last twenty years ; and it is equally true that if. you seek through the hidden causes and unheeded events for the hand that wrote " emancipa- tion " on the statute-book and on the flag, it lies still there to-day. I have no time to number the many kindred reforms to which he lent as profound an earnestness and almost as large aid. I hardly dare enter that home. There is one other marked, and, as it seems to me, unprecedented, element in this career. His was the happiest life I ever saw. No need for pity. Let no tear fall over his life. No man gathered into his bosom a fuller sheaf of blessing, delight, and joy. In his seventy years, there were not arrows enough in the whole quiver of the church or state to wound hiiii. As Guizot once said from the tribune, " Gentlemen, you cannot get high enough to reach the level of my contempt." So Garrison, from the serene level of his daily life, from the faith that never faltered, was able to say to American hate, " You cannot reach up to the level of my home mood, my daily existence." I have seen him intimately for thirty years, while raining on his head was the hate of the com- munity, when by every possible form of expression malig- nity let him know that it wished him all sorts of harm. I never saw him unhappy ; I never saw the moment that se- rene, abounding faith in the rectitude of his motive, the soundness of his method, and the certainty of his success did not lift him above all possibility of being reached by any clamor about him. Every one of his near friends will agree with me that this was the happiest life God has granted in our day to any American standing in the foremost rank of influence and efifort. 48 FUNERAL OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. Adjournecl from the stoi'iniest meeting, where hot debate had roused all his powers as near to anger as his nature ever let him come, the music of a dozen voices — even of those who had just opposed him — or a piano, if the house held one, changed his mood in an instant, and made the hour laugh with more than content ; unless indeed, a baby and playing with it proved metal even more attractive. To champion wearisome causes, bear with disordered in- tellects, to shelter the wrecks of intemperance and fugitives whose pulse trembled at every touch on the door-latch — this was his home ; keenly alive to human suffering, ever prompt to help I'elieve it, pouring out his means for that more lavishly than he ought — all this was no burden, never clouded or depressed the inextinguishable buoyancy and gladness of his nature. God ever held over him un- clouded the sunlight of his countenance. i\nd he never grew old. The tabernacle of flesh grew feebler and the step was less elastic. But the ability to work, the serene faith and unflagging hope suffered no change. To the day of his death he was as ready as in his boyhood to confront and defy a mad majority. The keen insight and clear judgment never failed him. His tenacity of purpose never weakened. He showed nothing either of the intellectual sluggishness or the timidity of age. The bugle-call which, last year, woke the nation to its peril and duty ou the Southern question, showed all the old fitness to lead and mould a people's course. Younger men might be confused or dazed by plausible pretensions, and half the North was befooled ; but the old pioneer detected the false ring as quickly as in his youth. The words his dying hand traced, welcoming the Southern exodus and foretelling its result, had all the defiant courage and prophetic solemnity of his youngest and boldest days. REMARKS OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. 49 Serene, feai'less, m.ii'velous man ! Mortal, with so few shortcomings ! Farewell, for a very little while, noblest of Christian men ! Leader, brave, tireless, unselfish ! When the ear heard thee, then it blessed thee ; the eye that saw thee gave witness to thee. More trul}^ than it could ever heretofore be said since the great patriarch wrote it, " the blessing of him that was ready to perish " was thine eternal great re- ward. Though the clouds rest for a moment to-day on the great work that you set your heart to accomplish, you knew, God in his love let you see, that your work was done ; that one thing, by his blessing on your efforts, is fixed beyond the possibility of change. While that ear could listen, God gave what He has so rarely given to man, the plaudits and prayers of four millions of victims, thanking you for eman- cipation, and through the clouds of to-day your heart, as it ceased to beat, felt certain, certain, that whether one flag or two shall rule this continent in time to come, one thing is settled — it never henceforth can be trodden by a slave I Mr. May. — A word should properly be said in acknowl- edgment of the great courtesy which has granted to the family and the friends of Mr. Garrison in this large audi- ence the use of this spacious house. We all recognize the courtesy, and offer our thanks. I am desired to say that those in this audience who would like to look once more upon what remains of WiLLlAM Lloyd Garrison will have now an opportunity to do so. Almost the entire congregation availed themselves of this privilege, and then the body was taken from the church to 4 50 FUNERAL OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. Forest Hills Cemetery, where, as the hist rays of the setting sun rested upon this beautiful " city of the dead," and glori- fied the spot, with tender and reverent hands it was laid in the grave, in the presence of his children and grandchildren, and very many of his old associates in the struggle for free- dom. The services were fitly closed by the singing of the hymn commencing: "I cannot always trace the way," by the friends who had rendered such acceptable service at the church, and all that was mortal of William Lloyd Gar- rison was left to its rest. THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS. BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. " Some time afterward, it was reported to me by the cit}- offirers that they had ferreted out the paper and its editor. His office was an obscure hole ; liis only vis- ible auxiliary a ne^jro boy; and his supporters a few very insignificant persons, of all colors." — Letter of lion. H. G. Otis. In a small chamber, fi-iendless and unseen, Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearned young man ; The place was dark, uufurnitnred and mean, Yet there the freedom of a race began. Help came but slowly ; surely, no man yet Put lever to the heavy world with less ; What need of help ? He knew how types were set, He had a dauntless spirit and a press. Such earnest natures are the fiery pitli, The compact nucleus round which systems grow ; Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith, And whirls impregnate with the central glow. O Truth ! O Freedom ! how are ye still born In the rude stable, in the manger nursed ! What humble hands unbar those gates of morn Through which the splendors of the New Day burst ! What! shall one monk, scarce known beyond his cell. Front Rome's far-reaching bolts, and scorn her frown ? Brave Luther answered, Yes! — that thunder's swell Rocked Europe, and discharmed the triple crown. 52 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. '• AVhatever can be known of Earth we know," Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snail-shells curled No I said one man in Genoa ; and that No Out of the dark created this New World. Who is it will not dare himself to trust? AVho is it hath not strength to stand alone? Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward must ? He and his works like sand from earth are blown. Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here ! See one straightforward conscience put in pawn To win a world ! See the obedient sphere. By bravery's simple gravitation drawn ! Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, And by the Present's lips repeated still. In our own single manhood to be bold, Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will ? We stride the river daily at its spring. Nor in our childish thoughtlessness foresee What myriad vassal streams shall tribute bring. How like an ecjual it shall greet the sea. O small beginnings, ye are great and strong. Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain ; Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong, Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain I APPENDIX. HELEN ELIZA BENSON, Wife, of William Lloyd Garnson. [As this volume will be read by many who have never seen the Memorial volume to Mrs. Garrison, prepared b\' her husband after her death, in 1876, for private distribution among friends, it is deemed fitting that the following tribute to her character, in the remarks of Wendell Phillips at her funeral, should be included in these pages.] REMARKS OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. How hard it is to let our friends go ! We cling to them as if separation were separation forever ; and yet, as life uears its end, and we tread the last years together, have we any right to be sur- prised that the circle grows narrow ? — that so many fall, one after another, at our side? Death seems to strike very frequently ; bat it is only the natural, inevitable fate, however sad for the moment. Some of us can recollect, only twenty years ago, the large and loving group that lived and worked together ; the joy of compan- ionship, sympathy with each other — almost our only joy — for the outlook was very dark, and our toil seemed almost vain. The world's dislike of what we aimed at, the social frown, obliged us to be all the world to each other ; and yet it was a full life. The life was worth living ; the labor was its own reward ; we lacked nothing* As I stand by this dust, my thoughts go freshly back to those pleasant years when the warp and woof of her life were woven so close to the rest of us ; when the sight of it was such an inspira- tion. How cheerfully she took up daily the burden of sacrifice and effort ! With what serene courage she looked into the face of peril to her own life, and to those who were dearer to her than life I A young bride brought under such dark skies, and so ready for them. Trained among Friends, with the blood of martyrdom and self-sacri- fice in her veins, she came so naturally to the altar ! And when the gallows was erected in front of the young bride's windows, never from that stout soul did the husband get look or word that bade him do anything but go steadily forward, and take no counsel of 54 HELEN ELIZA GARRISON. man. Sheltered iu the jail, a great city hunting for his life, how strong he must have been when they brought him his young wife's brave words : " I know my husband will never betray his princi- ples ! " Helpmeet, indeed, for the pioneer in that terrible fight. The most unselfish of human beings, she poured all her strength into the lives of those about her, without asking acknowledgment or recognition, unconscious of the sacrifice. With marvelous abil- ity, what would have been weary burdens to others, she lifted so gayly ! A young mother, with the cares of a growing family, not rich in means, only her own hands to help, yet never failing in cheerful welcome to every call ; doing for others as if her life was all leisure and her hands full. With i*are executive ability, doing a great deal, and so easily as to never seem burdened ! Who ever saw her reluct at any sacrifice her own purpose or her husband's made necessary? No matter how long and weary the absence, no matter how lonely he left her, she cheered and strengthened him to the sacrifice if his great cause asked it. The fair current of her husband's grand purpose swept on unchecked by any distracting anxiety. Her energy and unselfishness left him all his strength free for the world's service. Many of you have seen her only in years when illness hindered her power. You can hardly appreciate the large help she gave the Anti-Slavery movement. That home was a great help. Her husband's word and pen scattered his purpose far and wide ; but the comrades that liis ideas brought to his side her welcome melted into friends. No niatter how various and discordant they were in many things — no niatter how much there was to bear and overlook — her patience and her thanks for their sympathy in the great idea were always sufficient for this work also. She made a family of them, and her roof was always a home for all. And who shall say liow much that served the great cause ? Yet drudgery did not choke thouglit ; care never narrowed her interest. Slie was not merely the mother, or the head of a home ; her own life and her husband's moved hand in hand in such loving accord, seemed so exactly one, that it was hard to divide their work. At the fireside, — in the hours, not fre- HELEN ELIZA GARRISON . 55 quent, of relaxation, — in scenes of stormy debate, — that beau- tiful presence, of rare sweetness and dignit}^, what an inspiration and power it was ! And then the mother — fond, painstaking, faithful ! No mother who bars every generous thought out from her life, and in severe seclusion forgets everything but her children — no such mother was ever more exact in every duty, ready for every care, faithful at every point, more lavish in fond thoughtful- ness, than this mother, whose cares never narrowed the broad idea of life she brought from her girlhood's home. Who can forget her modest dignity — shrinkiugly modest — yet ever equal to the high place events called her to ? In that group of remarkable men and women which the Anti-Slavery movement drew together, she had her own niche, — which no one else could have filled so perfectly or unconsciously as she did. And in that rounded life no over-zeal in one channel, no extra service at one point, need be offered as excuse for shortcoming elsewhere. She forgot, omitted nothing. How much we all owe her ! She is not dead. She has gone before ; but she has not gone away. Nearer than ever, this very hour she watches and ministers to those in whose lives she was so wrapped; to whose happiness she was so de- voted. Who thinks that loving heart could be happy if it were not allowed to minister to those she loved ? How easy it is to fancy the welcome the old faces have given her ! The honored faces ; the familiar faces ; the old tones, that have carried her back to the pleasant years of health, and strength, and willing labor ! How gladly she broke the bonds that hindered her activity ! There are more there than here. Very slight the change seems to her ! She has not left us, — she has rejoined them. She has joined the old band that worked life-long for the true and the good. The dear, familiar names, how freshly they come to our lips ! We can see them bend over and lift her up to them, to a broader life. Faith is sight to-day. She works on a higher level ; ministers to old ideas ; guards lovingly those she went through life with. Even in that higher work they watch for our coming also. Let the years yet spared us here be warning to make ourselves fit for that companionship ! 56 HELEN ELIZA GARRISON. The separation is hard. Nature will have its way. " The heart knoweth its own bitterness," and for a while loves to dwell on it ; needs perhaps to dwell on it. But the hour is just here, knocking at the door, when we shall thank God not only for the long years of companionship, and health, and example, which she has given us, but for this great relief: that, in fullness of time, in loving-kindness, He hath broken the bond which hindered her. No heaven that is not a home to her. She worked with God here, and He has taken her into his nearer presence. We are sad because of the void at our side. It is hard to have the path so empty around us. We miss that face and those tones But that is the body : limited, narrow, of little faith. The soul shines through in a mo- ment, sees its own destiny, and thanks God for the joyous change We draw sad breaths now. We miss the magnet that kept this home together. We miss the tie that lovingly bound so many lives into one life. That is broken. We peer into the future and fear for another void still, and a narrower circle, not knowing which of us will be taken next. With an effort of patience — with half-submission — we bow to God's dealings. That is only for an hour. In a little while we shall remember the grand life ; we shall thank God for the contribution it has made to the educating forces of the race ; for the good it has been prompted to do ; for the part it had strength to play in the grandest drama of our generation ; and then, with our eyes lifted, and not dimmed by tears, we shall be able to say, out of a full heart, " Thou doest all things well. Blessed be Thy name ! Blessed be Thy name for the three-score overflowing years ; for the sunny sky she was permitted finally to see — the hated name made immortal — the periled life guarded by a nation's gratitude ; for the capstone put on with shoutings ; that she was privileged to enter the promised land and rest in the tri- umph, with the family circle unbroken — all she loved about her ! And blessed be Thy name, Father, that in duo time, with gracious and tender loving-kindness, Thou didst break the bonds that hin- dered her true life, and take her to higher service in thine imme- diate presence ! " u » c5 •% A- ,0- 0^ t • ^ ' ^^^^i:^ '"'t, 0^ 9^ » '^^*^ ^^'^ . «p :i -% "^ o ^ O ^QV 5°^ ^ » m ■.v^""'-^.? .0 ♦!_•."' %?■ j' V* '^^Sf.\\ % ^^^ _'* ^""'^^ <.. *'T:t' ,0 -'^'^ «€^i^>o' .OvN -^ ,40. :e ^fft<^ ^> i^ -71 ^"■v. ' A. /*v*--\,.-^«--,\y:.>ss;r »^o %>^^:>^^^^ -^^ V* «• " " -, ^ ^0^ ^ - «*5;,;i\vv- Mi 7B ^' ,^'^M ■A (>> .^ S^' ;,'K'':'''.';.>r!,VT.'"'.[':;:",-''v''iit.>j ' iivUM LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 011 899 800 5