Archibald H. Grimke, William Lloyd Garrison the Abolitionist

[52] he met Garrison. His experience with the ministers did not deter him from repeating the horrible tale wherever he could get together an audience. This time he secured his first public hearing in Boston. It was in the Federal Street Baptist Church. He spoke not only on the subject of slavery itself, the growth of anti-slavery societies, but on a new phase of the general subject, viz., the futility of the Colonization Society as an abolition instrument. Garrison was present, and treasured up in his heart the words of his friend. He did not forget how Lundy had pressed upon his hearers the importance of petitioning Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, as we shall see further on. But poor Lundy was unfortunate with the ministers. He got this time not the cold shoulder alone but a clerical slap in the face as well. He had just sat down when the pastor of the church, Rev. Howard Malcolm, uprose in wrath and inveighed against any intermeddling of the North with slavery, and brought the meeting with a high hand to a close. This incident was the first collision with the church of the forlorn hope of the Abolition movement. Trained as Garrison was in the orthodox creed and sound in that creed almost to bigotry, this behavior of a standard-bearer of the church, together with the apathy displayed by the clergy on a former occasion, caused probably the first “little rift within the lute” of his creed, “that by and by will make the music mute, and, ever widening, slowly silence all.” For in religion as in love, “Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.” The Rev. Howard Malcolm's arbitrary proceeding had prevented the organization of an anti-slavery committee.