and that the Union theneeforth, instead of being “ a covenant with were persisted in, but it was like attempting to extinguish a fire by pouring oil upon the flames, or like an effort to stop the roar of Niagara by increasing the volume of its waters.
Anti-slavery soeieties were greatly multiplied throughout the North, and many men of influence, both in the church and in the state, were won to the cause. Mr Garrison, true to his original purpose, never faltered or turned back. Other friends of the cause were sometimes discouraged—he, never. The abolitionists of the l'nitcd States were a united body until 1839—40, when divisions sprang up among them. Mr Garrison countenaneed the activity of women in the cause, even to the'extent of allowing them to vote and speak in the anti-slavery societies, and appointing them as lecturing agents. To this a strong party was opposed upon social and religious grounds. Then there were some who thought Mr Garrison dealt too severely with the churches and pulpits for their complicity with slavery, and who accused him of a want of religious orthodoxy. He was, moreover, a non-resistant, and this to many was distasteful. The dissentients from his opinions determined to form an anti-slavery political party, while he believed in working by moral rather than political party instrumentalitics, These differences led to the organization of a new National Anti-Slavery Society in 1840, and to the formation of the “Liberty Party” in p)liti'e«. The two societies sent their delegates to the “Yorld’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 18—10, and Mr Garrison refused to take his seat in that body, because the women delegates from the United States were excluded The discussions of the next few years served to make clearer than before the practical workings of the constitution of the United States as a shield and support of slavery; and Mr Garrison, after long and painful reflexion, came to the conclusion that its pro-slavery clauses were immoral, and that it was therefore wrong to take an oath for its support. The Southern States had a greatly enlarged representation in Congress on account of their slaves, and the national Government was con- stitutioually bound to assist in the capture of fugitive slaves, and to suppress every attempt on their part to gain their freedom by force. In view of these provisions, Mr Garrison, adopting a bold scriptural figure of speech, denounced the Union as “a covenant with death an-l an agreement with hell," and adopted as his motto the legend, “ No union with slaveholders." llis argument on this question, in the light of ethical principles generally admitted to be sound, could not easily be answered, and many men, who shrank from the conclusion that followed therefrom, were held by it as in a vice. lIis exposures of the character and practical working of the pro-slavery clauses of the constitution, in spite of the im- patience with which they were regarded in some quarters, made a deep impression upon the national conscience, and served to abate ihat mnliscrimiuating and idolatrous reverence for the Union, upon which the slaVeholders had so long relied for the protection of their system.
One class of abolitionists sought to evade the difficulty by strained interpretations of the clauses referred to, while others, admitting that they were immoral, felt themselves obliged, not- withstamling, to support the constitution in order to avoid what they thought would be still greater evils. The American Anti- Slavery Society, of which Mr Garrison was the president from 1813 to the day of emancipation, was during all this period the nucleus of an intense and powerful moral agitation, which was greatly valued by the soundest and most faithful workers in the field. of politics, who greatly respected him for his fidelity to his convictions. On the. other hand, Mr Garrison always had the highest respect for every earnest and faithful opponent of slavery, however far he might be from adopting his special views. He was intolerant of nothing but conscious treachery to the cause. When in 1861 the Southern States seceded from the Union and took up arms against it, he saw clearly that slavery would perish in the struggle, that the constitution would be purged of its pro-slavery clauses, death and an agreement with hell,” would rest upon the sure foundations of liberty, justice, and equality to all men. He there- fore ceased from that hour to advocate disunion, and devoted him- self to the task of preparing the way for and hastening on the inevitable event. I-lis services at this period were recognized anl honoured by President Lincoln and others in authority, and the whole country knew that the agitation which made the abolition of slavery feasible and necessary was due to his uncompromising spirit and indomitable courage. He lived to witnesa the re- demption of his country from the curse of human bondage, not indeed by the means which he preferred, and which he hoped would prove sufficiently potent, but by the bloody arbitrament of war. None the less, however, did he see in the great event the hand of that Divine Providence on which he had always relied for support in the great struggle to which his life was devoted. In 1865, at the close of the war, he declared that, slavery being abolished, his career as an abolitionist was ended. llc counselled a dissolution of the American Anti-Slavery Society, insisting that it had become fmzctus ofiiciis, and that whatever needed to be done for the protection of the freedmcu could best be accomplished by new associations formed for that purpose. 'lhe Liberator was discon- tinued at the end of the same year, after an existence of thirty-five years. He visited England for the second time in 1846, and again in 1867, when he was received with distinguished honours, public as well as private. In 1877, when he was there for the last time, he declined every form of public recognition. He died in New York, May 24, 1879, in the seventy-fourth year of his age, and was buried in Boston, after a most impressive funeral service, May 28. In 1843 a small volume of his Sonnets and other Poems was published, and in 1852. appeared a volume of Select-ions from his IVritings and Speeches. His wife, llclcn Eliza Benson, died in 1876. Four sons and one daughter survive them.
GARTER, Order of the. See Knighthood.
GARTH, Sir Samuel (1670?–1719), a physician and poet of the age of Anne, was born of a good Yorkshire family, in 1670, it is said, but more probably at an earlier date. He was a student of Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he resided until he was received into the College of Physicians in 1691. In 1696 he became a prominent supporter of the new scheme of providing dispensaries for the relief of the sick poor, as a protection against the greed of the apothe- caries. This labour having exposed him to the animosity of many of his own profession, and especially of the last— named body, he published in 1699 a mock—heroic poem, The Dispensary, in six cautos, which had an instant success, passing through three editions within the year. Garth became the leading physician of the Whigs, as Radcliffe was of the Tories. In 1714 he was knighted by George I., and he died on the 18th of January 1718—19. Garth was a wealthy man, leaving estates in Warwickshire, Oxford— shire, and Buckinghamshire. He wrote little besides his best—known work The Dispensmv, and Claremont, a moral epistle in verse. In 1717 he edited a translation of Ovid’s illelamorphoses, himself supplying the fourteenth and part of the fifteenth book. The subject of his mock- heroic epic is treated in a cumbrous style; and even in his own day Garth was accused of flatness and poverty of thought.
GAS AND GAS-LIGHTING
ALL artificial light is obtained as a result-either of com- bustion or of incandescence; or it might be more accurate to classify illuminating agents as those which emit light as a result of chemical action, and those which glow, from the presence of a large amount of heat, without thereby giving rise to any chemical change. The materials whence artificial light of the nature of flame has been derived are principally bodies rich in carbon and hydrogen. Wax, fats, and oils, on exposure to a certain amount of heat, undergo destructive distillation, evolving inflammable gases; and it is really such gases that are consumed in the burning of lamps and candles, the wicks bringing small proportions of the substances into a sufficient heat. I Wood and coal also, when distilled, give ofl" combustible gases ; and ordinary gas—lighting only differs from illmnina— tion by candles and lamps in the gas being stored up and consumed at a distance from the point where it is generated. Inflammable gas is formed in great abundance within the earth in connexion with carbonaceous deposits, such as coal and petroleum; and similar accumulations not unfre- quently occur in connexion with deposits of rock-salt; the gases from any of these sources, escaping by means of fis- sures or seams to the open air, may be collected and burned in suitable arrangements. Thus the “ eternal fires” of Baku, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, which have been
- nown as burning from remote ages, are due to gaseous
