But I am prepared to embrace you.  I am sure you are called to a great work, and I mean to help you.’  Mr. Sewall cordially assured him of his readiness also to cooperate with him.  Mr. Alcott invited him to his home.  He went and we sat with him until twelve that night, listening to his discourse, in which he showed plainly that immediate, unconditional emancipation, without expatriation, was the right of every slave, and could not be withheld by his master an hour without sin.  That night my soul was baptised in his spirit, and ever since I have been a disciple and fellow-laborer of William Lloyd Garrison.”  A new force had arisen in our history, and a new epoch had broken bolts for humanity.

CHAPTER IV.

THE HOUR AND THE MAN.

The providential man was not yet twenty-five.  In personal appearance he was quite the reverse of his friend Lundy.  Garrison was gifted with a body that matched his mind, strong, straight, sound in every part, and proportioned in every member.  As he stood he was much above the medium height.  His dark hair had already partially left the crown of the high dome-shaped head.  His forehead combined height with breadth, which, taken in connection with the brown eyes covered with the now habitual glasses, lent to his countenance a striking air of moral serenity and elevation.  Force, firmness, no ordinary self-reliance and courage found masterly expression in the rest of the face.  There was through the whole physical man a nice blending of strength and delicacy of structure.  The impression of fineness and finish was perhaps mainly owing to the woman-like purity and freshness of skin and color, which overspread the virile lines and features of the face from brow to chin.  What one saw in that face was the quality of justice made flesh, good-will to men personified.

This characterization of the reformer’s countenance may be considered absurd by some readers.  But absurd it is not.  People who had read his stern denunciations of slave-holding and slaveholders, and who had formed their image of the man from his “hard language” and their own prejudices could not recognize the original when they met him.  His manner was peculiarly winning and attractive, and in personal intercourse almost instantly disarmed hostility.  The even gentleness of his rich voice, his unfailing courtesy and good temper, his quick eye for harmless pleasantries, his hearty laugh, the Quaker-like calmness, deliberateness, and meekness, with which he would meet objections and argue the righteousness of his cause, his sweet reasonableness and companionableness were in strange contrast to popular misconceptions and caricatures of him.  No one needed to be persuaded, who had once conversed with him, that there was no hatred or vindictiveness in his severities of language toward slaveholders.  That he was no Jacobin, no enemy of society, was perceived the moment one looked