324 WORKMEN AND HEROES * Mr. Garrison's honor at St. James's Hall, June 29th. John Bright presided, and among the addresses of welcome were those of Earl Russell, the Duke of Argyll, John Stuart Mill, George Thompson, and W. Vernon Harcourt. Later the free- dom of the city of Edinburgh was conferred upon the American abolitionist, and in August he attended the International Anti-Slavery Conference at Paris, repre- senting the American Freedman's Union Commission, and meeting Laboulaye, Cochin, and other eminent Frenchmen. The troubled period of reconstruction, involving the defence of the freedmen's rights, found no more interested observer and participant than Mr. Garrison. The former hostile treatment which had been meted out to him by press and party was of the past, and, like Lincoln, " He heard the hisses change to cheers, The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise, And took both in the same unwavering mood." Unique among reformers, he received in life the reverence that usually reveals itself in post-mortem honors which indicate the late awakening of public con- sciousness and suggest the pathos of their delay. The felicities of domestic life were his in more than ordinary measure, and " honor, love, obedience, troops of friends," made his closing years as serene as his opening career had been stormy. Occasional ailments reminded him of ad- vancing age, but his temperamental cheerfulness and faith in human progress never forsook him. The death of his dear wife, in 1876, was a visible blow to him, and in the next year, for physical and mental recuperation, he visited England again for the last time, with his son Francis, enjoying a delightful reunion with old friends and making new ones, as was his wont. In May, 1879, during a visit to his daughter in New York, he breathed his last on the 24th of the month, with all his children about him. He left four sons, named respectively, George Thompson, William Lloyd, Wendell Phillips, and Francis Jackson, and an only daughter, Helen Francis, the wife of Henry Villard. Two others, a daughter and a son, died at an early age. In 1885, Mr. Garrison's biography, written by his sons Wendell Phillips and Francis Jackson, was published by the Century Company, in four volumes, oc- tavo. They contain not only the personal details of a famous career, but a care- ful history of the abolition struggle. To them the future historian must look for the most faithful picture of the anti-slavery times and their leader. A bronze statue of heroic size, executed by Olin L. Warner, of New York, representing Mr. Garrison in a sitting posture, was presented to the city of Bos- ton by several eminent citizens, in 1886, and is placed on Commonwealth Avenue, opposite the Hotel Vendome. Mr. Garrison's calm estimate of himself has been preserved and may fitly con- clude this sketch : " The truth is, he who commences any reform which at last becomes one of
