The agents and lecturers went forth from the convention bristling with facts, and glowing with enthusiasm to renew the crusade against slavery.
Garrison, broken in health as he was, went on from Boston to attend this school of his disciples.

He spoke briefly but repeatedly to them upon the all-absorbing topic which had brought them together.

"It was a happy circumstance, too," he wrote, "that I was present with them, and that they had an opportunity to become _personally_ acquainted with me; for, as I am a great stumbling-block in the way of the people, or, rather, of some people, it would be somewhat disastrous to our cause if any of our agents, through the influence of popular sentiment, should be led to cherish prejudices against me." In February, 1837, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society came to the rescue of the _Liberator_ from its financial embarrassments and hand-to-mouth existence by assuming the responsibility of its publication.

The arrangement did not in any respect compromise Mr.
Garrison's editorial independence, but lifted from him and his friend Knapp in his own language, "a heavy burden, which has long crushed us to the earth." The arrangement, nevertheless, continued but a year when it was voluntarily set aside by Mr.Garrison for causes of which we must now give an account.
In the letter from which we have quoted above, touching his visit to the Convention of Anti-Slavery Agents, Garrison alludes to one of these causes.

He says: "I was most kindly received by all, and treated as a brother, notwithstanding the wide difference of opinion between us on some religious points, _especially the Sabbath question_." The italics are our own.