Letter from Experience Billings, Cambridge, [Massachusetts], to Maria Weston Chapman, 1839 April 22
Description:
Experience Billings writes to Maria Weston Chapman in regards to explaining the delay in sending information requested due to her sickness. She attended three lectures by Mr. [Alanson] St. Clair, which were "much approved and very highly spoken of of the few." He spoke very highly of Garrison. At the close of the lecture she urgently sought subscribers for the "Massachusetts Abolitionist" and he invited subscriptions for the "Liberator", denying that the "Abolitionist" was opposition to the "Liberator." He found that St. Clair did not approve of Mr. Garrison's measures from a mutual friend. She writes that the society took ten or twelve copies of the "Abolitionist" for circulation. She regrets that there is so much apathy in the minds of the people in regard to reading. He writes, "there are many publications on slavery, but the great mass of the people choose to remain ignorant." She writes that even Quakers are not taking up the newspaper, on account of "nonresistance principals." He writes that he believes Garrison is a Christian and "until I read something from his pen that contradict it, I shall be a Garrisonite."