that ground too radical and revolutionary,
and were for ranging themselves under the banner of Gradualism, thinking
to draw to their ranks a class of people, who would be repelled by
Immediatism. But Garrison was unyielding, refused to budge an inch to
conciliate friend or foe--not even such stanch supporters as were Sewall
and Loring, who supplied him again and again with money needed to
continue the publication of the _Liberator_. No, he was right and they
were wrong, and they, not he, ought accordingly to yield. The contention
between the leader and his disciples was not what was expedient, but
what was right. It was on the part of the leader the assertion of a
vital principle, and on this ground he was pledged against retreat. The
mountain could not go to Mahomet, therefore Mahomet must needs go to the
mountain. Garrison could not abandon his position, wherefore in due time
Loring, Child, and Sewall surrendered theirs. Finely has Lowell
expressed this righteous stubbornness, and steadfastness to principle in
three stanzas of his poem entitled, "The Day of Small Things," and which
have such an obvious lesson for our own times that I shall venture to
quote them in this place:

"Who is it will not dare himself to trust?
Who 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?"

The history of the making of this first society is an interesting story.
There were four meetings in all before it was found possible to complete
the work of its organization. These meetings extended over a space of
nearly three months, so obstinate were a minority against committing the
proposed society to the principle of immediate emancipation. The very
name which was to be given to the association provoked debate and
disagreement. Some were for christening it "Philo-African," while
Garrison would no such milk-and-water title, but one which expressed
distinctly and graphically the real character of the organization, viz.,
"New England Anti-Slavery Society." He would sail under no fal