Garrison, to his honor, did not allow the exceeding candor of his mentor to disturb their friendship.  The pioneer was not wholly without defence to the impeachment.  He might have pleaded ill health, of which he had had quantum suf. since 1836 for himself and family.  He might have pleaded also the dissipation of too much of his energies in consequence of more or less pecuniary embarrassments from which he was never wholly freed; but, above all, he might have pleaded his increasing activity as an anti-slavery lecturer.  His contributions to the movement against slavery were of a notable character in this direction, both in respect of quantity and quality.  He was not alone the editor of the Liberator, he was unquestionably besides one of the most effective and interesting of the anti-slavery speakers—­indeed in the judgment of so competent an authority as James Russell Lowell, he was regarded as the most effective of the anti-slavery speakers.  Still, after all is placed to his credit that can possibly be, Quincy’s complaints would be supported by an altogether too solid basis of fact.  The pioneer was much given to procrastination.  What was not urgent he was strongly tempted to put off for a more convenient time.  His work accumulated.  He labored hard and he accomplished much, but because of this habit of postponing for to-morrow what need not be done to-day, he was necessarily forced to leave undone many things which he ought to have done and which he might have accomplished had he been given to putting off for to-morrow nothing which might be finished to-day.

The pioneer was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but never was he wholly cast down by his misfortunes.  His cheerful and bouyant spirit kept him afloat above his sorrows, above his griefs.  The organ of mirthfulness in him was very large.  He was an optimist in the best sense of that word, viz., that all things work together for good to them that love goodness.  In the darkest moments which the Abolition cause encountered his own countenance was full of light, his own heart pierced through the gloom and communicated its glow to those about him, his own voice rang bugle-like through reverse and disaster.

In his family the reformer was seen at his best.  His wife was his friend and equal, his children his playfellows and companions.  The dust of the great conflict he never carried with him into his home to choke the love which burned ever brightly on its hearth and in the hearts which it contained.  What he professed in the Liberator, what he preached in the world, of non-resistance, woman’s rights, perfectionism, he practiced in his home, he embodied as father, and husband, and host.  Never lived reformer who more completely realized his own ideals to those nearest and dearest to him than William Lloyd Garrison.