it kept.  It stood high on the rungs of the social ladder and pulled and pushed men from it by thousands to wretchedness and ruin.  So flagrant and universal was the drinking customs of Boston then that dealers offered on the commons during holidays, without let or hindrance, the drunkard’s glass to the crowds thronging by extemporized booths and bars.  Shocking as was the excesses of this period “nothing comparatively was heard on the subject of intemperance—­it was seldom a theme for the essayist—­the newspapers scarcely acknowledged its existence, excepting occasionally in connection with some catastrophes or crimes—­the Christian and patriot, while they perceived its ravages, formed no plans for its overthrow—­and it did not occur to any that a paper devoted mainly to its suppression, might be made a direct and successful engine in the great work of reform.  Private expostulations and individual confessions were indeed sometimes made; but no systematic efforts were adopted to give precision to the views or a bias to the sentiments of the people.”  Such was the state of public morals and the state of public sentiment up to the year 1826, when there occurred a change.  This change was brought about chiefly through the instrumentality of a Baptist city missionary, the Rev. William Collier.  His labors among the poor of Boston had doubtless revealed to him the bestial character of intemperance, and the necessity of doing something to check and put an end to the havoc it was working.  With this design he established the National Philanthropist in Boston, March 4, 1826.  The editor was one of Garrison’s earliest acquaintances in the city.  Garrison went after awhile to board with him, and still later entered the office of the Philanthropist as a type-setter.  The printer of the paper, Nathaniel H. White and young Garrison, occupied the same room at Mr. Collier’s.  And so almost before our hero was aware, he had launched his bark upon the sea of the temperance reform.  Presently, when the founder of the paper retired, it seemed the most natural thing in the world, that the young journeyman printer, with his editorial experience and ability, should succeed him as editor.  His room-mate, White, bought the Philanthropist, and in April 1828, formally installed Garrison into its editorship.  Into this new work he carried all his moral earnestness and enthusiasm of purpose.  The paper grew under his hand in size, typographical appearance, and in editorial force and capacity.  It was a wide-awake sentinel on the wall of society; and week after week its columns bristled and flashed with apposite facts, telling arguments, shrewd suggestions, cogent appeals to the community to destroy the accursed thing.  No better education could he have had as the preparation for his life work.  He began to understand then the strength of deep-seated public evils, to acquaint himself with the methods and instruments with which to attack them.  The Philanthropist