It is not materially anticipating to record here what Lowell wrote of Garrison a couple of years later, when he was defining his own position on abolitionism, to his friend Briggs: “Garrison is so used to standing alone that, like Daniel Boone, he moves away as the world creeps up to him, and goes farther into the wilderness. He considers every step a step forward, though it be over the edge of a precipice. But, with all his faults (and they are the faults of his position), he is a great and extraordinary man. His work may be over, but it has been a great work. Posterity will forget his hard words, and remember his hard work. I look upon him already as an historical personage, as one who is in his niche.... I love you (and love includes respect); I respect Garrison (respect does not include love). There never has been a leader of Reform who was not also a blackguard. Remember that Garrison was so long in a position where he alone was right and all the world wrong, that such a position has created in him a habit of mind which may remain, though circumstances have wholly changed. Indeed, a mind of that cast is essential to a Reformer. Luther was as infallible as any man that ever held St. Peter’s keys.” But the most condensed expression of his feeling toward this remarkable man, who so dominated the anti-slavery movement, is to be found in the verses addressed to him beginning-- “In a small chamber, friendless and unseen.”[55] In May, 1846, occurred one of those personal incidents which stirred deeply the heart of the anti-slavery crusader and was made the occasion of public testimony. The Rev. Charles Turner Torrey, who had been an active writer and worker in the cause, and in 1834 was shut up in the penitentiary in Baltimore for having aided slaves to escape, died in May, 1846, of disease brought on by ill usage. He was of New England birth and his body was brought to Boston for burial. Besides the burial service there was a public meeting in Faneuil Hall on the evening of 18 May. Dr. Henry I. Bowditch, an ardent supporter of the anti-slavery cause and one of the committee in charge, wrote to Lowell on the 3d of the month, telling him that private advices led them to expect hourly the news of Torrey’s death, and that the plan was on foot for a public funeral service. If this is done,” he says, “we shall hope to hear from the poets of our land, the true ministers of God and of Christ, at the present era.... May I receive from your heart of love and high-souled honor sentiments such as I have not a few times obtained from your free-hearted poetry?” No appeal could have used so cogent an argument as that which thus characterized the poet, and Lowell responded with the lines, “On the Death of Charles Turner Torrey,” which were read at the meeting in Faneuil Hall by Dr. Channing. Dr. Bowditch thanked the poet for the response to his request, but doubted if the poem was not of too charitable a tenor.