s
of his life work. So that it might be truly said that Garrison even when
he went a-wooing forgot not his cause and that when he took a wife, he
made at the same time a grand contribution to its ultimate triumph.

How did Helen Eliza Garrison serve the great cause? One who knew shall
tell. He has told it in his own unequaled way. "That home," he says,
"was a great help. Her husband's word and pen scattered his purpose far
and wide; but the comrades that his ideas brought to his side her
welcome melted into friends. No matter how various and discordant they
were in many things--no matter how much there was to bear and
overlook--her patience and her thanks for their sympathy in the great
idea were always sufficient for the work also.... In that group of
remarkable men and women which the anti-slavery movement drew together,
she had her own niche--which no one else could have filled so perfectly
or unconsciously as she did.... She forgot, omitted nothing. How much we
all owe her!" These were words spoken by a friend, whose name will
appear later on in this story; words spoken by him at the close of her
beautiful life, as she lay dead in her coffin.

And here is another account of her written by the husband on the first
anniversary of their marriage: "I did not marry her," he confides to her
brother George, "expecting that she would assume a prominent station in
the anti-slavery cause, but for domestic quietude and happiness. So
completely absorbed am I in that cause, that it was undoubtedly wise in
me to select as a partner one who, while her benevolent feelings were in
union with mine, was less immediately and entirely connected with it. I
knew she was naturally diffident, and distrustful of her own ability to
do all that her heart might prompt. She is one of those who prefer to
toil unseen--to give by stealth--and to sacrifice in seclusion. By her
unwearied attention to my wants, her sympathetic regards, her perfect
equanimity of mind, and her sweet and endearing manners; she is no
trifling support to Abolitionism, inasmuch as she lightens my labors,
and enables me to find exquisite delight in the family circle, as an
offset to public adversity."

And here is a lovely bit of self-revelation made to her betrothed
several months before they were wedded. "I am aware of the
responsibility that will devolve upon me," she writes, "and how much my
example will be copied among that class you have so long labored to
elevate a