The tempest had begun in the streets also.  The mob from its five thousand throats were howling “Thompson!  Thompson!” The mayor of the city, Theodore Lyman, appeared upon the scene, and announced to the gentlemen of property and standing, who were thus exercising their vocal organs, that Mr. Thompson was not at the meeting, was not in the city.  But the mayor was a modern Canute before the sea of human passion, which was rushing in over law and authority.  He besought the rioters to disperse, but he might as well have besought the waves breaking on Nastasket Beach to disperse.  Higher, higher rose the voices; fiercer, fiercer waxed the multitude; more and more frightful became the uproar.  The long-pent-up excitement of the city and its hatred of Abolitionists had broken loose at last and the deluge had come.  The mayor tossed upon the human inundation as a twig on a mountain stream, and with him for the nonce struggled helplessly the police power of the town also.

Upstairs in the hall the society and its president are quite as powerless as the mayor and the police below.  Miss Mary S. Parker, the president, is struggling with the customary opening exercises.  She has called the meeting to order, read to the ladies some passages from the Bible, and has lifted up her voice in prayer to the All Wise and Merciful One “for direction and succor, and the forgiveness of enemies and revilers.”  It is a wonderful scene, a marvelous example of Christian heroism, for in the midst of the hisses and threats and curses of the rioters, the prayer of the brave woman rose clear and untremulous.  But now the rioters have thrown themselves against the partition between the landing-place and the hall.  They are trying to break it down; now, they have partially succeeded.  In another moment they have thrown themselves against the door of the office where Garrison is locked.  The lower panel is dashed in.  Through the opening they have caught sight of their object, Garrison, serenely writing at his desk.  “There he is!  That’s Garrison!  Out with the scoundrel!” and other such words of recognition and execration, burst from one and another of the mob.  The shattering of the partition, the noise of splitting and ripping boards, the sharp crash caused by the shivering of the office door, the loud and angry outcries of the rioters warn the serene occupant of the office that his position has become one of extreme peril.  But he does not become excited.  His composure does not forsake him.  Instead of attempting to escape, he simply turns to his friend, Burleigh, with the words, “You may as well open the door, and let them come in and do their worst.”  But fortunately, Burleigh was in no such extremely non-resistant mood.