Garrison championed all of the new ideas, and in doing so arrayed against himself all of the special champions of the existing establishments. In his reduced physical state, the reformer was not equal to the tremendous concussions of this "era of activity," as Emerson named it. At moments he appeared bewildered amid the loud, fierce clamor of contending ideas, each asserting in turn its moral primacy. For an instant the vision of the great soul grew dim, the great heart seemed to have lost its bearings. All of the new ideas thawed and melted into each other, dissolved into one vague and grand solidarity of reforms. The voice of the whole was urging him amid the gathering moral confusion to declare himself for all truth, and he hearkened irresolute, with divided mind. "I feel somewhat at a loss to know what to do"--he confesses at this juncture to George W. Benson, "whether to go into all the principles of holy reform and make the Abolition cause subordinate, or whether still to persevere in the _one_ beaten track as hitherto. Circumstances hereafter must determine this matter." That was written in August, 1837; a couple of months later circumstances had not determined the matter, it would seem, from the following extract from a letter to his brother-in-law: "It is not my intention at present to alter either the general character or course of the _Liberator_. My work in the anti-slavery cause is not wholly done; as soon as it is, I shall know it, and shall be prepared, I trust, to enter upon a mightier work of reform."