piece of paper was here handed up to Mr. Beecher.) I am asked a question. I will answer this one. 'At the auction of sittings in your church, can the negroes bid on equal terms with the whites?' (Cries of 'No, no.') Perhaps you know better than I do. (Hear, hear.') But I declare that they can. ('Hear, hear,' and applause.) I declare that, at no time for ten years past-without any rule passed by the trustees, and without even a request from me-no decent man or woman has ever found molestation or trouble in walking into my church, and sitting where he or she pleased. (Applause.)

"Are any of the office-bearers in your church negroes?' No; not to my knowledge. Such has been the practical doctrine of amalgamation in the South that it is very difficult now-a-days to tell who is a negro. ('Hear, hear,' and 'No, no.') Whenever the majority of my people want a negro to be an officer, he will be one; and I am free to say that there are a great many men that I know who are abundantly capable of honouring any office of trust in the gift of our church. (Applause.) But while there are none in my church, there is, in Columbia county, a little church where a negro man, being the ablest business man, and the wealthiest man in that town, is not only a ruler and elder of the church, but also contributes about two-thirds of all the expenses of it. (Hear, hear,' and a voice: 'That is the exception, not the rule.') I am answering these questions, you see, out of gratuitous mercy; I am not bound to do so.

"I am asked whether Pennsylvania was not carried for Mr. Lincoln on account of his advocacy of the Morrill tariff, and whether the tariff was not one of the planks of the Chicago platform, on which Mr. Lincoln was elected. I had a great deal to do with that election; but I tell you, that whatever local (Here the interruptions became so noisy that it was found impossible to proceed. The chairman asked how they could expect Mr. Beecher to answer questions amid such a disturbance. When order had been restored, the lecturer proceeded.)—I am not afraid to leave the treatment I have received at this meeting to the impartial judgment of every fairplaying Englishman. When I am asked questions, gentlemanly courtesy requires

that I should be permitted to answer them. (A voice from the farther end of the room shouted something about the inhabitants of Liverpool.) I know that it was in the placards requested to give Mr. Beeeher a reception that should make him understand what the opinion of Liverpool was about him. ('No, no;' 'Yes, yes.') There are two sides to every question, and Mr. Beecher's opinion about the treatment of Liverpool citizens is just as much as your opinion about the treatment of Mr. Beecher. Let me say, that if you wish me to answer questions, you must be still; for if I am interrupted, that is the end of the matter. ('Hear, hear,' and 'Bravo.') I have this to say, that I have no doubt that the Morrill tariff, or that which is now called so, did exercise a great deal of influence, not alone in Pennsylvania, but in many other parts of the country; because there are many sections of our country—those especially where the manufacture of iron or wool are the predominating industries—that are yet very much in favour of protection tariffs; but the thinking men, and the influential men of both parties are becoming more and more in favour of free trade.

"Can a negro ride in a public vehicle in New York with a white man?' I reply that there are times when politicians stir up the passions of the lower classes of men and the foreigners, and there are times just on the eve of an election when the prejudice against the coloured man is stirred up and excited, in which the poor negroes will be disturbed in any part of the city; but taking the period of the year throughout, one year after another, there are but one or two of the city horse-railroads in which a respectable coloured man will be molested in riding through the city. It is only on one railroad that this happened, and it is one which I have in the pulpit and the press always held up to severe reproof. At the Fulton Ferry there are two lines of omnibusses, one white and the other blue. I had been accustomed to go in them indifferently; but one day I saw a little paper stuck upon one of them, saying, 'Coloured people not allowed to ride in this omnibus.' I instantly got out. There are men who stand at the door of these two omnibus lines urging passengers into one or the other. I

am very well known to all of them; and the next day, when I came to the place, the gentleman serving asked, 'Won't you ride, sir?' 'No,' I said; 'I am too much of a negro to ride in that omnibus.' (Laughter.) I do not know whether this had any influence, but I do know that after a fortnight's time I had occasion to look in, and the placard was gone. I called the attention of every one I met to that fact, and said to them, 'Don't ride in that omnibus which violates your principles, and my principles, and common decency at the same time.' I say still further, that in all New England there is not a railway where a coloured man cannot ride as freely as a white man. ('Hear, hear.') In the whole city of New York a coloured man in any public vehicle will never be inconvenienced or suffer any discourtesy."

The fifth and last meeting was held in Exeter Hall, London, 20th October. The excitement in London was immense. A hall twenty times the size of Exeter would not have accommodated the tens of thousands who were eager to hear the great orator. No sooner were the doors opened than the great edifice was densely packed in every part, and thousands more were trying in vain to obtain an entrance. The adjoining streets were so thronged that no one could pass in any direction whatsoever. When Mr.

Beecher came, it was evident that he could never work his way into the hall, so thick was the press of people. After considerable delay he obtained an entrance by mounting on the shoulders of a strong posse of policemen. When he appeared on the platform he was welcomed by long and reiterated plaudits, the audience rising en masse. Southern sympathisers had done their utmost to create a prejudice against him by circulating false stories about him through the newspapers, and by covering every wall in the metropolis with inflammatory placards; but utter failure attended their sinister attempts. There was a small group of the friends of Secession in the hall that evening, with the intention, doubtless, of interrupting the speaker; but all that they could do was to give vent to a few hisses, which were always drowned by the most deafening applause. The chair was occupied by Benjamin Scott, Esq., Chamberlain

of London, who was supported by a large number of gentlemen from all parts of the country, and some from abroad. The Chamberlain spoke of Mr. Beecher in the following

"Whether we regard Henry Ward Beecher as the son of the celebrated Dr. Beecher, or as the brother of Mrs. Beecher Stowe, or as a stranger visiting our shores, whether we regard him as a gentleman or a Christian minister, and as the uncompromising advocate of human rights, he is entitled to our respectful and courteous attention. I ain quite sure that this assembly of Englishmen and Englishwomen will support me in securing for him a respectful hearing. It becomes the more incumbent upon us to do so since he states that the rapid and fragmentary_reports of speeches delivered in America, which were flashed across the Atlantic by the telegraph, have been so brief and hurried that they have not conveyed to us his full meaning and sense. He has been very often misunderstood, and, I fear, misrepresented; and as a stranger about to depart from our shores in a few days, he asks for this opportunity of putting himself right with the London public upon this question. You will hear him and judge of his statements, and I am sure you will accord him a fair hearing. I shall myself abstain advisedly from entering upon the subject of tonight's address. I wish merely to take this opportunity of saying how much I esteem the man personally, and because he has been the uncompromising advocate, for twenty-five years, in times of peace and before the war, of the emancipation of the enslaved and oppressed. He was one of the few thinking men who were the noble pioneers of freedom on the American continent. He was so when it was neither fashionable nor profitable to be so. He took his stand, not on the shifting sand of expediency, but on the immovable rock of principle. He had put his hand to the plough, and would never turn back. Some people had allowed their ears to be stuffed with cotton, some were blinded by gold dust, and some had allowed the gag of expediency to be put in their mouths to quiet them. But Henry Ward Beecher stood before the world of America, and for some time almost alone, and called things by their right names. He had no

mealy-mouthed expressions about peculiar institutions, and paternal institutions; but he called slavery by the old English name of slavery. And he charged to the account of that crime cruelty, lust, murder, rapine, piracy. He minced not his terms or his phrases. He looked right ahead to the course of duty which he had selected; and regardless of the threats of man or the wrath of man, although the tar-pot was ready for him, and the feathers were prepared-although the noose and the halter were ready and almost about his neck-he went straight onward to the object; and now, he has converted-as every man who stands alone for the truth and right will eventually convert a large majority of those who were originally opposed to him. What the humble draper's assistant, Granville Sharpe, did in this country, Henry Ward Beecher and two or three like-minded men have done on the continent of America. When he heard Christian ministersGod save the mark !—standing in the pulpits with the Book of Truth before them, and stating that the institution of slavery was Christian, he did not mince the matter-he affirmed that it was bred in the bottomless pit. I honour and respect him for his manliness. He is every inch a man. He is a standard by which humanity may well measure itself. Would to God we had a hundred such men."

Mr. Beecher's speech was an attempt to view slavery and the war from an American standpoint. In all his previous addresses he had spoken from an English point of view, showing how the great struggle affected, or was likely to affect, English interests; but in this, his last public speech in our country, he was anxious to tell us what the North had to say in justification of its own actions and motives. The effect was eminently successful. He carried the vast audience with him in every point. Every topic upon which he touched was explained to the satisfaction and delight of all. His reasoning was most lucid and cogent, and his eloquence simply irresistible. The Times, the Standard, and the Telegraph, however, were not convinced, but rather irritated, soured, and exasperated. They laughed, and sneered, and scorned, and then turned aside to take their breath. This was true not only of the London papers, but