Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 3

[384] the hospitality of the Davises with H. C. Wright, Parker¹ Pillsbury, and Joseph Barker, the last-named being chosen to preside over the Convention. Barker had apparently taken permanent leave of his native England, having purchased a farm in Ohio and removed thither with his² family. On his preliminary visit to this country he had received from Mr. Garrison in Boston attentions like those³ he had bestowed in England. Once settled, he identified himself with the abolitionists, writing copiously for the⁴ Liberator, and finding there admission (which Edmund Quincy denied to it in the Liberty Bell) for an article⁵ showing that; since the Bible sanctioned slavery, the book must be demolished as a condition precedent to emancipation. In November, 1852, he had been prime mover in a Bible Convention held at Salem, Ohio,⁶ concerning which he reported to Mr. Garrison that the⁷ meetings had been crowded, with just enough opposition.

At Hartford, likewise, there was a very full attendance, but the opposition was certainly excessive. Not that the clergy of the city appeared in force to deprecate the proposed examination of the Bible, or to maintain its divine origin and authority. With a single exception, they held entirely aloof. The Rev. Joseph Turner, a local Second-Adventist preacher, and the Rev. George Storrs of⁸ Brooklyn, N. Y., belonging to the same despised denomination,⁹ alone had the courage of their opinions and stood up for the inspiration of the Bible. They were (considering merely their adversaries) very unequal to the task, yet they served as rallying-points to the disorderly elements in the galleries —notably the divinity students from the adjacent Trinity College. These, as Mr. Garrison testified—

attempted to break up the meeting by stamping, shouting,¹⁰ yelling, groaning, grunting, hissing, mocking, cursing, whistling, making indecent and insulting expressions, on one occasion turning off the gas and extinguishing the lights, so that the meeting was for some time compelled to suspend its proceedings, and behaving throughout like a troop of demons let loose from the pit. Every appeal to their sense of propriety, to their