The outspread wing of American christianity, apparently broad enough to give shelter to a perishing world, refuses to cover us.

To us, its bones are brass, and its features iron.

In running thither for shelter and{9} succor, we have only fled from the hungry blood-hound to the devouring wolf--from a corrupt and selfish world, to a hollow and hypocritical church."-- _Speech before American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, May_, 1854.
Four years or more, from 1837 to 1841, he struggled on, in New Bedford, sawing wood, rolling casks, or doing what labor he might, to support himself and young family; four years he brooded over the scars which slavery and semi-slavery had inflicted upon his body and soul; and then, with his wounds yet unhealed, he fell among the Garrisonians--a glorious waif to those most ardent reformers.

It happened one day, at Nantucket, that he, diffidently and reluctantly, was led to address an anti-slavery meeting.

He was about the age when the younger Pitt entered the House of Commons; like Pitt, too, he stood up a born orator.
William Lloyd Garrison, who was happily present, writes thus of Mr.
Douglass' maiden effort; "I shall never forget his first speech at the convention--the extraordinary emotion it excited in my own mind--the powerful impression it created upon a crowded auditory, completely taken by surprise.