A scene of tempestuous conflict followed, as the whole scope and bearing of the work that had been going on in the Commonwealth under the auspices of the “four,” became apparent. They stood like him who has tampered with the embankments that toil and sacrifice have built between the devouring ocean and a level and fertile land. The indignant feeling of the audience rose to an almost uncontrollable pitch; yet they _did_ restrain it; for the winnowing-time had come, and they must take careful note of men’s conduct _now_, that they might know who to trust hereafter. Painful and unexpected it was to see Scott, Codding and Geo. Allen swept away, as the whirlwind of debate went on. The resolutions before the meeting were respecting a new paper. But the arguments by which they were sustained, demanded not only a new paper, but new principles--a new constitution--a new society--new officers. Was the true and original test of membership--not an acknowledgment of the justice and necessity of immediate emancipation, but a belief in the religious duty of voting at the polls? Then would those arguments require the dissolution of the Massachusetts Society, another set of men as managers of a new one, and the utter destruction of the Liberator. Yet those who brought forward those arguments, and who, if sincere, were bound by them to destroy the worthless instrumentalities of which they complained, uniformly declared, with the same breath, that nothing was further from their intention than to injure the Liberator, or to cast any imputations against the Board of Managers. Ellis Gray Loring rose in reply. “On the question of the _need_ of a new paper, I do not wish to speak. A need may exist which I do not perceive. Brethren tell me that there is such a need. I only say that to make such a paper the organ of the Society, and to sustain it at the expense of the Society, over the head of the Liberator would have a tendency to injure the latter. I do not say that gentlemen mean it. They tell us they abjure such a thought. But it is a maxim in law, that the purpose of a man’s acts must be presumed to correspond with their manifest tendency.” Wendell Phillips argued earnestly against the first resolution. The second was so manifestly a mockery that it was scarcely noticed. The spirit of the meeting rose against the whole intolerant contrivance submitted to its decision. The “four,” when they perceived it, strove, by every parliamentary device, to delay judgment. They strove to divide the resolutions--to refer the matter to a committee--to adjourn the meeting. In vain. The spirit that filled the Marlboro’ Chapel that night, refused to be conjured into a committee-room, or to leave its work unfinished. “Vote it down,” “vote it down,” was the reply to every proposition; till Mr. Loring moved an indefinite postponement, which was almost unanimously carried.