Archibald H. Grimke, William Lloyd Garrison the Abolitionist

[53] But this was affected at a second meeting of the friends of the slave. Garrison was one of the twenty gentlemen who were appointed such a committee. His zeal and energy far exceeded the zeal and energy of the remaining nineteen. He did not need the earnest exhortation of Lundy to impress upon his memory the importance of “activity and steady perseverance.” He perceived almost at once that everything depended on them. And so he had formed plans for a vigorous campaign against the existence of slavery in the District of Columbia. But before he was ready to set out along the line of work, which he had laid down for Massachusetts, the scene of his labors shifted to Bennington, Vermont. Before he left Boston, Lundy had recognized him as “a valuable coadjutor.” The relationship between the two men was becoming beautifully close. The more Lundy saw of Garrison, the more he must have seemed to him a man after his own heart. And so no wonder that he was solicitous of fastening him to his cause with hooks of steel. The older had written the younger reformer a letter almost paternal in tonehe must do thus and thus, he must not be disappointed if he finds the heavy end of the burthen borne by himself, while those associated with him do little to keep the wheels moving, he must remember that “a few will have the labor to perform and the honor to share.” Then there creeps into his words a grain of doubt, a vague fear lest his young ally should take his hands from the plough and go the way of all men, and here are the words which Paul might have written to Timothy : “I hope you will persevere in your work, steadily, but not make too large calculations ”