his own mind.  His paper was not the special organ of any anti-slavery society, yet it was regarded, by general consent of the friends and enemies of the cause, as the organ of the anti-slavery movement.  The discussion in its columns of new and startling doctrines, on subjects unconnected with slavery, occasioned many of the former much uneasiness and embarrassment, while it furnished the latter with new excuses for their enmity, and with the pretence that under cover of abolition, lurked a design of assailing institutions and opinions justly held in regard throughout the Christian world.

In the summer of 1837, Sarah and Angelina Grimke visited New England for the purpose of advocating the cause of the slave, with whose condition they were well acquainted, being natives of South Carolina, and having been themselves at one time implicated in the system.  Their original intention was to confine their public labors to audiences of their own sex, but they finally addressed promiscuous assemblies.  Their intimate knowledge of the true character of slavery; their zeal, devotion, and gifts as speakers, produced a deep impression, wherever they went.  They met with considerable opposition from colonizationists, and also from a portion of the New England clergy, on the ground of the impropriety of their publicly addressing mixed audiences.  This called forth in the Liberator, which at that time, I understand, was under the patronage, though I believe not under the control of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, a discussion of the abstract question of the entire equality of the rights and duties of the two sexes.  Here was a new element of discord.  In 1838, at the annual New England convention of abolitionists, a woman was for the first time placed on committees with men, an innovation upon the general custom of the community, which excited much dissatisfaction in the minds of many.

About this time the rightfulness of civil and church government began to be called in question, through the columns of the Liberator, by its editor and correspondents.  These opinions were concurrently advocated with the doctrine of non-resistance.  Those who hold these opinions, while they deny that civil and ecclesiastical government are of divine authority, are yet passively submissive to the authority of the former, though they abstain from exercising the political rights of citizenship.  There were not wanting those, among the opponents of abolition, to charge the anti-slavery body at large with maintaining these views, and in consequence serious embarrassments were thrown in the way of a successful prosecution of the cause.  The executive committee of the Society at New York were placed in a difficult position, but as far as I am able to judge, they endeavored to hold on the steady tenor of their way, without, on the one hand, countenancing the introduction of extraneous matters upon the anti-slavery platform; or, on the other hand, yielding to the clamor of the pro-slavery party, whether in church or state.