But it was still in the gristle of sentiment waiting to be transmuted into the bone and muscle of a definite and determined purpose, when first he met Lundy.

This meeting of the two men, was to Garrison what the fourth call of God was to Samuel, the Hebrew lad, who afterward became a prophet.

As the three previous calls of God and the conversations with Eli had prepared the Jewish boy to receive and understand the next summons of Jehovah, so had Garrison's former experience and education made him ready for the divine message when uttered in his ears by Lundy.

All the sense of truth and the passion for righteousness of the young man replied to the voice, "Here am I." The hardening process of growth became immediately manifest in him.

Whereas before there was sentimental opposition to slavery, there began then an opposition, active and practical.