they had an opportunity to become _personally_ acquainted with me; for, as I am a great stumbling-block in the way of the people, or, rather, of some people, it would be somewhat disastrous to our cause if any of our agents, through the influence of popular sentiment, should be led to cherish prejudices against me." In February, 1837, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society came to the rescue of the _Liberator_ from its financial embarrassments and hand-to-mouth existence by assuming the responsibility of its publication. The arrangement did not in any respect compromise Mr. Garrison's editorial independence, but lifted from him and his friend Knapp in his own language, "a heavy burden, which has long crushed us to the earth." The arrangement, nevertheless, continued but a year when it was voluntarily set aside by Mr. Garrison for causes of which we must now give an account. In the letter from which we have quoted above, touching his visit to the Convention of Anti-Slavery Agents, Garrison alludes to one of these causes. He says: "I was most kindly received by all, and treated as a brother, notwithstanding the wide difference of opinion between us on some religious points, _especially the Sabbath question_." The italics are our own. Until within a few years he had been one of the strictest of Sabbath observers. Although never formally connected with any church, he had been a narrow and even an intolerant believer in the creed and observances of New England orthodoxy. Words failed him in 1828 to express his abhorrence of a meeting of professed infidels: "It is impossible," he exclaimed with the ardor of a bigot, "to estimate the depravity and wickedness of those who, at the present day, reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ," etc. A year and a half later while editing the _Genius_ in Baltimore, he held uncompromisingly to the stern Sabbatical notions of the Puritans. A fête given to Lafayette in France on Sunday seemed to him an act of sheer religious desecration. The carrying of passengers and the mails on the Sabbath provoked his energetic reprobation. He was in all points of New England Puritanism, orthodox of the orthodox.