observer today, remembering the villainy that had to be described and
the indifference to be overcome, it appears appropriate and necessary.

Through the cogency of his arguments and the sincerity and
vitality of his writings and speeches, Garrison soon attracted to him-
self a varied group of friends and associates.

Harriet Martineau once wrote:

There is a remarkable set of people now living and vigorously acting
in the world, with a consonance of will and understanding which has
perhaps never been witnessed among so large a number of individ-
uals of such diversified powers, habits, opinions, tastes and circum-
stances. The body comprehends men and women of every shade of
color, of every degree of education, of every variety of religious
opinion, of every gradation of rank, bound together by no vow, no
pledge, no stipulation but of each preserving his individual liberty;
and yet they act as if they were of one heart and of one soul. Such
union could be secured by no principle of worldly interest; nor, for a
term of years, by the most stringent fanaticism. A well-grounded
faith, directed towards a noble object, is the only principle which can
account for such a spectacle as the world is now waking up to con-
template in the abolitionists of the United States. ²

Among the first to be deeply influenced were Samuel J. May, of
Brooklyn, Connecticut, the only Unitarian minister then in the state;
May's brother-in-law Bronson Alcott; and Samuel E. Sewall, May's
cousin, a young Boston lawyer who was a descendant of Judge
Samuel Sewall of Colonial fame and a member of one of the most
prominent families of the Commonwealth. The three had attended a
lecture by Garrison in Boston in October 1830 at which Garrison
had argued the doctrine of immediate emancipation. They had been
deeply impressed, had offered Garrison their cooperation, and had
invited him to Bronson Alcott's home where they spent several hours.
So great was the impact of that meeting that almost forty years later
May still retained much of his original fervor when he wrote: "That
night my soul was baptized in his spirit, and ever since I have been
a disciple and fellow-laborer of William Lloyd Garrison." ³ May
helped in the formation of the American Anti-Slavery Society, served

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