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them the thing in hand ever a little blots out the sky. The agitator lives in a realm of exaggeration, of broadsides and italic types, of stampings of the foot and clenchings of the hand.
He uses the terms and phrases of immortal truth to clamp together his leaky raft.
The “belle reponse” of the martyr, the deep apothegm of the sage, and the words of Christ, are ever on his lips.
Such things pass muster in politics without exciting comment.
And yet, these statements of ideal truth, like the axioms of arithmetic, never quite square with the material world.
They can only be felt and believed in mentally.
You can never find or measure out an exact pound of anything or lay off a true mile; nor can you assign any accurate value to the influence of a good deed.
Nevertheless, the inaccuracy which is permissible in the market-place is very much greater than the inaccuracy permissible to the historian who sits in his closet endeavoring to think clearly upon the matter.
The source of Garrison's power was the Bible.
From his earliest days he read the Bible constantly, and prayed constantly.
It was with this fire that he started his conflagration.
Now the Bible is many things.
Boston, the. Atlantic Monthly. Press, 1921.
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