They concurred with Mr. Garrison in the opinion that the efficacy of the paper and the consistency of the society would be best preserved by the cessation of the pecuniary connection, if it gave pain or embarrassment to the mind of a single contributor to the funds. This did not greatly mend the matter to those who profaned the sacred name of conscience, by making it a cloak for malice and for weakness. Still Mordecai sat in the king’s gate--still it was the abolition of Massachusetts which sustained the Liberator. The Society received the natural reward of its faithfulness, in the increase of its strength. Full of cheerful constancy, and reposing undiminished confidence in its General Agent, whose short-comings were known to but few, it pursued its course, rejoicing in freedom, with renewed determination to impart her life-giving influence to the enslaved. At the annual meeting of the National Society, an arrangement was made to obviate that clashing of the fiscal concerns and the interference of agents with each other’s track, which had been so troublesome from the first. By this arrangement, no agents were to labor in Massachusetts but in connection with the wishes of the State Board of officers, and under their direction. With this understanding, ten thousand dollars, were to be raised during the year, in this State, in quarterly payments, for the central treasury at New York. Having thus cast aside every weight and besetting sin, the society girt itself afresh, to run with patient swiftness the race set before it. FOOTNOTE: [1] Clergymen, he intimated, must not be put forward to do it, as in that case Mr. Garrison would have a handle by which to repel the attempt; but _laymen_ must be sought out and employed for the purpose. CHAPTER III. THE PLOT. Our plot is as good a plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant; a good plot, good friends, and full of expectations: an excellent plot; very good friends. * * * Why my lord of YORK commends the plot, and the general course of the action. SHAKSPEARE.