“Now for the first time indeed Slavery felt itself assailed genuinely and in thorough earnest. But editors and other proprietors of public opinion manufactories in the Free States were slower of perception. They had not the warning of that instinctive terror which informed the slaveholder of the approach of danger. But they were soon satisfied of the dreadful truth that there existed in their very midst one truly sincere and fearless man, and instantly a prolonged shriek of execration and horror quavered from the Aroostook to the Red River. They saw, with a thrill of apprehension for the security of their offices or of their hold upon public consideration what treasonable conclusions might be legitimately drawn from their own harmless premises, harmless only so long as there was no man honest enough to make an application of them, and so cast suspicion on the motives of all. If the pitch and tow fulminations of Salmoneus had been suddenly converted into genuine bolts of Jupiter, he could not have dropped them from his hands with a more confounded alacrity. Here was a man gifted with a most excruciating sincerity and frankness, a hungry conscience that could not be sated with the cheap workhouse gruel of smooth words, and inconveniently addicted to thinking aloud.” The article closes with this striking diagnosis:-- “The advent of Garrison was indeed an event of historical moment. The ban of outlawry was set on Slavery, and its doom was sealed. It matters not that since that time Slavery has won some of its most alarming victories. The nucleus of a sincere uncompromising hostility to it was formed. A clear issue between right and wrong, disentangled from the mists of extraneous interests, was presented to men’s minds. The question was removed from the dust and bewilderment of political strife to the clear and calm retirements of God’s justice and individual conscience. Henceforth the struggle must be not between the Northern and Southern States, but between barbarism and civilization, between cruelty and mercy, between evil and good. This was already in itself a victory, a triumph which would have been enough to round the long life struggle of a reformer with peace. Exaltation was achieved by the mere look, as it were, of an unknown, solitary, and friendless youth, so full was it of the potent conjuration of honesty and veracity. Whatever may be the contents of government mails and official bulletins, the shining feet of the messengers of Nature are constant and swift to bring to the ears of the lowly servant of Truth at least the sustaining news--that God still exists, and that He may select even the bruised reed for his instrument.”