But the leaven of equality was not so effectually disposed of.  It had secured permanent lodgment in the anti-slavery body, and the fermentation started by it, went briskly on.  Such progress did the principle of women’s rights make among the Eastern Abolitionists, especially among those of Massachusetts, that in the spring of 1838 the New England Anti-Slavery Society voted to admit women to equal membership with men.  This radical action was followed by a clerical secession from the society, which made a stir at the time.  For among the seceding members was no less a personage than Amos A. Phelps, who was the general agent of the Massachusetts Society, and therefore one of Garrison’s stanchest supporters.  The reform instituted by the New England Society, in respect of the character of its membership, was quickly adopted by the Massachusetts Society and by several local organizations, all of which set the ball of discord spinning among the brethren at a great rate.  But by this time all the new ideas, Sabbatical, no-government, perfectionist, non-resistance, as well as women’s rights, were within the anti-slavery arena, and fencing and fighting for a chance to live, with the old ideas and the old order.

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.”