Archibald H. Grimke, William Lloyd Garrison the Abolitionist

“ [304] have passed from death unto life, and know by happy experience, that there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.” These were the pioneer's articles of faith. Their extreme simplicity and theological conservatism it would seem ought to have satisfied the evangelicals of all denominations. They were in essentials thoroughly orthodox. But in the composition of the shibboleths of beliefs non-essentials as well as essentials enter, the former to the latter in the proportion of two to one. It is not surprising, therefore, that Garrison's essentials proved unequal to the test set up by sectarianism, inasmuch as his spiritual life dropped the aspirate of the non-essentials of religious forms and observances.

But the good man had his compensation as well as his trials. Such of a very noble kind was the great Irish address brought over from Ireland by Remond in December 1841. It was signed by Daniel O'Connell, Father Mathew, and sixty thousand Roman Catholics of Ireland, who called upon the Irish Roman Catholics of America to make the cause of the slaves of the United States their cause. Large expectations of Irish assistance in the anti-slavery agitation were excited in the bosoms of Abolitionists by this imposing appeal. Garrison shared the high hopes of its beneficent influence upon the Ireland of America, with many others. Alas! for the “best laid schemes of mice and men,” for the new Ireland was not populated with saints, but a fiercely human race who had come to their new home to better their own condition, not that of the negro. Hardly had they touched these shores before they were Americanized