It was, of course, painful to Garrison to feel that he had become a rock of offence in the path of the great movement, which he had started and to which he was devoting himself so energetically.

To Elizabeth Pease, one of the noblest of the English Abolitionists, and one of his stanchest transatlantic friends, he defended himself against the false and cruel statements touching his religious beliefs.

"I esteem the Holy Scriptures," he wrote her, "above all other books in the universe, and always appeal to 'the law and the testimony' to prove all my peculiar doctrines." His religious sentiments and Sabbatical views are almost if not quite identical with those held by the Quakers.

"I believe in an indwelling Christ," he goes on to furnish a summary of his confession of faith, "and in His righteousness alone; I glory in nothing here below, save in Christ and in Him crucified; I believe all the works of the devil are to be destroyed, and Our Lord is to reign from sea to sea, even to the ends of the earth; and I profess to have passed from death unto life, and know by happy experience, that there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit." These were the pioneer's articles of faith.

Their extreme simplicity and theological conservatism it would seem ought to have satisfied the evangelicals of all denominations.