As opposition diminished and their path became easier, abolitionists began to differ among themselves as to the best means to attain their ends and as to the fundamental principles of their cause. In New York State a tendency was developed, under the leadership of Gerrit Smith, to adopt political methods. In Boston moral agitation remained the accepted means. But here novel theories on other subjects were being adopted by leading antislavery people and thus associated in the public mind with antislavery itself. Garrison adopted and recommended in the _Liberator_ his no-government and non-resistance doctrines. He put forth new and not generally accepted views regarding the observance of Sunday. He took pains to declare that he adopted these theories in his private capacity, and not as an abolitionist. But he had many followers who did not discriminate so carefully. The public mind became confused and began to associate abolitionism with a variety of novel and unpopular opinions. The cause was thus obstructed and divisions occurred among those who laboured for the emancipation of the negro. Up to this time women had not taken part in public meetings, and to many persons the idea of their doing so was repugnant. The admission of women to membership and office in the same societies as men was determined in Boston in 1838, after a struggle and amidst much objection. "I have observed," wrote Jay in a private letter in 1838, "frequent attempts to use abolition as a pack-horse to carry forth into the world some favourite notion having no legitimate connection with the antislavery cause; and have witnessed the dissensions caused in our ranks by such inconsiderate and dishonest assumptions. Thus I have known an official document, under the signature of a secretary of a State society, pass a high eulogium on a particular form of Church government; and I have seen an editorial article in an official antislavery periodical recommending a decoction of dried currants as a substitute for the fermented juice of the grape in the observance of the Lord's Supper! All such perversions of antislavery influence appear to me to be dishonest in their character, and dangerous in their consequences to the continuance and efficiency of our organization. No one is more strenuous than myself for the right of opinion and discussion; but common justice and fairness require that we should not make others responsible for our peculiar opinions, nor seek to propagate them by means entrusted to us for very different purposes.