who opposed me were merely partisans. I knew that the people of Liverpool were on the right side. I remember that in the midst of the wild uproar at the Liverpool meeting I felt almost as if a door had been thrown open, and a wind had swept by me. I never prayed more heartily in my life than I prayed for my opponents in the midst of that hurricane and interruption. But it so affected my voice that a reaction came upon me on Saturday and Sunday; and I was almost speechless on Monday. I felt all day on Monday that I was coming to London to speak to a public audience, but my voice was gone; and I felt as though about to be made a derision to my enemies-to stand up before a multitude, and be unable to say a word. It would have been a mortification to anybody's natural pride. I asked God to restore me my voice, as a child would ask its father to grant it a favour. But I hoped that God would grant me His grace, to enable me, if it were necessary for the cause that I should be put to open shame, to stand up as a fool before the audience. When I got up on Tuesday morning I spoke to myself to try whether I could speak, and my voice was quite clear. Many might say that this was because I slept in a wet jacket, but I prefer to feel that I had a direct interposition in my favour."

Similar meetings were held in Manchester and Liverpool under the auspices of the Union and Emancipation Society. They were meetings to bid him good-bye; and they were, indeed, farewell meetings, judging by the kindly feelings, friendly wishes, and mutual regrets which were so freely expressed on every hand. Mr. Beecher was beginning to feel really at home in our island, and his countenance was sad when he thought of the departure which was soon to take place. "When I was preparing to go away from London and from Liverpool," he says, 66 we had a good crying-meeting. The breakfast at which I bade farewell to the brethren of these places was one at which we all had a good cry. I felt as though I was leaving old companions; and I felt a love, not only for those that were there, but for those that were not there, and would not have been there; and my whole heart left its blessing on England-on Great Britain-good and bad—the whole of them."

Two laudatory addresses were presented to him at the Liverpool meeting, one from his English friends in the town, the other from the Welsh people, both of which he acknowleged in his own happy style. In receiving the Welsh address he remarked that he owed no inconsiderable part of himself to the Welsh blood which he had in his veins, that his great-great-grandmother was as fully-blooded a Welsh woman as ever lived, a Mary Roberts. He was also presented with a handsome and costly album, containing about two hundred carte-de-visite portraits of the principal members of the Union and Emancipation Society. This presentation was made by J. H. Estcourt, Esq., Chairman of the Executive Committee of said society.

When Mr. Beecher returned to his native land, he felt much fatigued and exhausted. The strength he had gained while resting on the Continent was more than spent during his arduous labours in this kingdom. On his return, a public reception was accorded him at the Academy of Music, when he delivered a very powerful and stirring speech, pronounced to be one of his best efforts. Dwelling upon the state of feeling he had witnessed in England, he testified, without hesitation, that the great heart of the British nation was with the North, and that sympathy for the South was confined almost exclusively to the commercial classes and the nobility. The national Thanksgiving Day soon came, when he gave a characteristic address to an immense audience in Plymouth Church.

Great events swept on so rapidly now that we cannot dwell upon them here. The war continued with all its heartrending horrors till 1865. When it ended, it was estimated that the North alone had lost about 316,000 men. It was an incalculable loss; but 4,000,000 slaves were set at liberty, and converted from "chattels" into human beings. No one rejoiced more heartily at the grand result than Mr. Beecher. The supreme desire of his heart was at last fulfilled there was not a single slave in the States, and the Union was restored.

By special request of President Lincoln, Mr. Beecher undertook to deliver an address on the occasion of raising the Flag of the Union at Fort Sumter, from whence it had

been taken down by the rebels just four years before. He was accompanied on this mission by William Lloyd Garrison, and a great party of other celebrated friends of liberty. The flag was unfurled by General Anderson, by whom the Fort was defended in 1861. Mr. Beecher's address was full of fiery eloquence from beginning to end, both the speaker and the audience being inspired to an extraordinary degree. The date of this act of triumph is noteworthy, 14th April 1865, the very day on which President Lincoln was assassinated.

Charleston, South Carolina, was a city into which Mr. Beecher was prohibited to enter during the whole period of anti-slavery agitation. He was regarded by the inhabitants as a deadly enemy. But now everything was completely changed. On Friday he spoke without fear of molestation on the occasion of raising the National Flag over Fort Sumter, and on the following Sunday he preached in Zion Church, one of the largest churches in the city, to a congregation of emancipated negroes. How wonderfully had

Providence revolutionised circumstances in four short years! Subsequently Mr. Beecher gave the following account of the Sabbath service to his own people in Plymouth Church:"There was one church in which I ministered myself. It was my privilege to preach in Charleston on Sunday morning at Zion Church-the African Church. About three thousand people were there. Enough of them were white to say that there were white people there. There were a number of officers and a few strangers present; but the great body of the house was filled with the intelligent part of the coloured population of Charleston. I know not that I shall ever preach with such sensations again. I have preached about slaves and slavery; but to stand in the midst of such a great audience, and feel, 'Here they are, and they are now come to life and to light,' struck me through with such sensations as I never had before. One little incident was peculiarly charming to my feelings. I gave out, for the second hymn

'Daughter of Zion, from the dust,

Exalt thy fallen head.'

You will find it to be an almost perfect description of

Charleston itself. There sat, four or five pews in front of me, seven or eight old men that attempted to choir itfor they were going to be respectable, and sing as white folks do. I did not go to hear them sing so: I went to hear black folks sing in their own way, and was thirsty for the old negro melodies, wailing, half-chant tunes which I had heard so much about. But I got only church music in the first singing. I was obliged to line out the words. I repeated again

'Daughter of Zion, from the dust,
Exalt thy fallen head,'

and looked down to see if they were going to sing; and while these men were getting ready, there broke out on my left the voice of a young maiden, apparently twelve or thirteen years of age, in one of their characteristic plantation melodies. She went through the first line before another voice was heard. Everybody looked at his neighbour in surprise. On the next line a few more voices joined hers. And on the next about a third of the audience took up the hymn and sang it to the end. I know not whether this young maiden thought that I had called her when I said, 'Daughter of Zion,' but the style of singing in which she led off was just what I wanted to hear."

The war being now over, and the slaves being liberated, it was time to strike another key in Christian teaching; and the name of that key was, Forgiveness of Injuries. Mr. Beecher's first discourse on this subject was extremely unpopular. The heart-burnings and soul-wounds were so severe, and of so recent a date, that the exhortation to forgive the enemy sounded very strange. But Mr. Beecher, feeling it to be the true doctrine, continued to preach it with all the earnestness he could command.

It is plain from the foregoing pages that the Plymouth pastor need not be ashamed of his political record. Bravely did he fight the good fight, having on the whole armour of God. He had truth behind him pushing him onwards, and onward he went to the very teeth of the danger, having nothing in his hand but the sword of the Spirit. Was he not, as Mr. Haweis suggests, the Wilberforce of America?

T

CHAPTER IX.

CHARACTERISTICS.

HE highest force known to us in this world is manhood. Reason, understanding, imagination, will, emotion each of these is great and powerful, but that in which they all inhere, and of which they are but feeble and imperfect manifestations, is immeasurably greater. Manhood is the sum total, the ultimate outcome of all the faculties of the soul. It consists in the union, combination, and interaction of all mental operations. Hence a man is · great or small, in the only true sense, according to the measure of manhood that he possesses. A man of genius is not necessarily a great man; because genius, in some of its lower forms at least, may dwell in a single faculty, without producing any effect whatever upon the man as a whole, whereas true greatness cannot exist apart from a state of equilibrium and harmony in the whole nature. Equipoise, tranquillity, and a just balancing of powers are essential to genuine manhood. We are quite aware of the fact that the world is represented by certain people as teeming with sparkling geniuses-intellectual, imaginative, scientific, inventive; but every calm and serious observer of human life is compelled to believe that full, well-rounded, evenlybalanced geniuses are extremely rare. Mere brilliancy of talent passes with the many for real genius. If a man is, after a fashion, clever, witty, keen, dashy, pungent, and