The more he thought the less did gradualism seem defensible on moral grounds.

John Wesley had said that slavery was the "sum of all villainies"; it was indeed the sin of sins, and as such ought to be abandoned not gradually but immediately.

Slave-holding was sin and slaveholders were sinners.

The sin and sinner should both be denounced as such and the latter called to instant repentance, and the duty of making immediate restitution of the stolen liberties of their slaves.

This was the tone ministers of religion held every where toward sin and sinners, and this should be the tone held by the preachers of Abolition toward slavery, and slaveholders.