William Lloyd Garrison, the Abolitionist. Archibald Henry Grimké

       CHAPTER II.

       THE MAN HEARS A VOICE: SAMUEL, SAMUEL!

       Table of Contents

      There is a moment in the life of every serious soul, when things, which were before unseen and unheard in the world around him become visible and audible. This startling moment comes to some sooner, to others later, but to all, who are not totally given up to the service of self, at sometime surely. From that moment a change passes over such an one, for more and more he hears mysterious voices, and clearer and more clear he sees apparitional forms floating up from the depths above which he kneels. Whence come they, what mean they? He leans over the abyss, and lo! the sounds to which he hearkens are the voices of human weeping and the forms at which he gazes are the apparitions of human woe; they beckon to him, and the voices beseech him in multitudinous accent and heart-break: "Come over, come down, oh! friend and brother, and help us." Then he straightway puts away the things and the thoughts of the past and girding himself with the things, and the thoughts of the divine OUGHT and the almighty MUST, he goes over and down to the rescue.

      Such an epochal first moment came to William Lloyd Garrison in the streets of Boston. Amid the hard struggle for bread he heard the abysmal voices, saw the gaunt forms of misery. He was a constant witness of the ravages of the demon of drink—saw how strong men succumbed, and weak ones turned to brutes in its clutch. And were they not his brothers, the strong men and the weak ones alike? And how could he, their keeper, see them desperately beset and not fly to their help? Ah! he could not and did not walk by on the other side, but, stripling though he was, rushed to do battle with the giant vice, which was slaying the souls and the bodies of his fellow citizens. Rum during the three first decades of the present century was, like death, no respecter of persons, entering with equal freedom the homes of the rich, and the hovels of the poor. It was in universal demand by all classes and conditions of men. No occasion was esteemed too sacred for its presence and use. It was an honored guest at a wedding, a christening, or a funeral. The minister whose hands were laid in baptismal blessing on babes, or raised in the holy sacrament of love over brides, lifted also the glass; and the selfsame lips which had spoken the last words over the dead, drank and made merry presently afterward among the decanters on the side-board. It mattered not for what the building was intended—whether for church, school, or parsonage, rum was the grand master of ceremonies, the indispensable celebrant at the various stages of its completion. The party who dug the parson out after a snow-storm, verily got their reward, a sort of prelibation of the visionary sweets of that land, flowing not, according to the Jewish notion, with milk and honey, but according to the revised version of Yankeedom, with milk and rum. Rum was, forsooth, a very decent devil, if judged by the exalted character of the company it kept. It stood high on the rungs of the social ladder and pulled and pushed men from it by thousands to wretchedness and ruin. So flagrant and universal was the drinking customs of Boston then that dealers offered on the commons during holidays, without let or