you rest in, the parson's prayers, and the marble on which your virtues are sent down to posterity," and that is all. It is the proudest proof I know of touching the strength that abides in the grand old mother of the Lion heart, that she did not die of it, or tear and slay as France had done before. There was a better way. A meeting was called in Manchester to frame the Anti-CornLaw League and to slay the tax on the poor man's bread first. John Bright was there and came to the front to win the first great jewel in his crown. He called an open air meeting also in his own town of Rochdale presently and said: "The taxes must be taken off the poor man's loaf. This is not a party question but a pantry question. It is a question between the toiling millions of England and the lords of the land, and we must insist first of all upon the repeal of the corn laws, that the people may have bread.”

Three years before this, at a meeting to promote popular education, he had found the man after his own heart, Richard Cobden; and these two men went into the fight together heart and soul. Cobden was called first to the great council of the nation to represent the vast working force of England, which wanted bread that it might work and live.

"And who is this same?" was said with a sneer, when he stood up to speak the first time in Parliament. "A calico printer, indeed!" and they became like ice-bergs. But he said in this first speech: "The tax on bread is paid by men who have to maintain their families on an average wage of ten shillings a week." Then he cited the tables in which he was a master, and proved to them and to all England that the nobleman's family paid toward this bread tax one cent in the hundred pounds of income, while the working man paid twenty per cent on all he earned.

John Bright followed him not long after as member for Durham, and came on the same errand, to fight this vast iniquity first, and then, as the light shone for him, to fight them all. He also spoke when he began to an audi

ence of ice-bergs, and not many of them, but he said then and there: "If I ever give my support to a law which enriches the rich at the cost of the poor, I shall be ashamed forever after to hold up my head in the presence of my countrymen."

And it was time something was done. Four years after the League was made the workingmen of England were fighting for bare life. I was safe by this time in a sweet, rural place, flowing with milk and oat bread in any case, and not quite bare of honey. But as I talk to you I see the poor creatures coming down the dale from Lancashire in rags, starving, and singing woeful songs of their own making, for a crust of bread. In Carlisle, to the north of us, one-quarter of the population was not on the verge of starvation, but right in it, and must have died if something had not instantly been done.

Five thousand men were walking wearily through the streets of Burnley and seeking work, God help them! on any terms that would keep them alive. The stone heap in the great and strong town of Leeds measured at last 150,000 tons of stones broken by men with clever, lissom hands at the machines; but they must do this or die, and the town masters had to say to them at last: "We give you seven shillings and six pence a week for breaking those stones; we will give you six shillings a week to lay off and break no more." The storekeepers in the towns called public meetings touching the condition of the working people in their towns, and made homely speeches more fearful than Marlowe's tragedies, if there was any pity left for them in England. "My old customers, who are working people, do not buy dry goods any more," one said, "but only patches." "I sell bread," another said, "and they buy it, God help them, by the half penny worth." "I sell bacon," another testified, "and there were bits I used to throw away, but they come now and insist on paying a penny for those bits, for they will not beg them." Our dear house mother remembers hearing a poor man say: "They give us soup to keep us

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alive, but the meat is so bad I cannot touch it." This is a hint, and no more, of the state of things in 1842, and do you wonder when you read them that men like Richard Cobden and John Bright set England ablaze, or as much of England as could answer to the holy fire that burned in their hearts, to burn up the sin of the corn laws and the shame? They went through the land as witnesses to the light. The League sent out winged messengers from the press by the five million.

Business began to look up after the good harvest of 1842, and money poured into the treasury of the League like the eager into the Severn. "Now is the accepted time," the Leaguers said, "and now is the day of salvation. We must not fall back now but press on." And they did press on, while I remember we followed them in the papers in our small place, for this was all we could do. It was a wonderful time. The people of England were arrayed against the long enduring tyranny. It was the battle of life for life. "Norman hand in English dish," the old distich ran; well, the men of the old race were saying, or growling, rather, hands out and hands off. We did not see it in that light then, but 1066 was flashing out her fires to 1845. Doomsday Book was to be revised. The man was to have his chance against the lord who had held him down so long. Give him his old, strong body back by free bread, and then see what would happen in and for England! Two men stood great and clear against the lurid light for all England to see-John Bright and Richard Cobden. Two voices moved and charmed us above all the rest-their voices. And one of these held me in the stronger and sweeter spell-John Bright's. It was so hearty and English, so musical, even on the printed pages, and so affluent of life and life's worth, and it was a great chapter in my own education to read those speeches. The good cause prevailed, the sin and shame of shriving the poor man's loaf in that way, in any case, was blotted out of the book of the life of England, as I hope and trust forever. As my own

thought runs, this man "sent from God whose name was John, for a witness, to bear witness of the light" bore in his heart beyond all other men the white fire that burnt up the old overgrowth of eight hundred years and let in the sun on the waiting seed.

That grand battle for the most primitive right we can touch, my own hand in my own dish and not another to take toll of it save by my free consent or grace or bounty, made John Bright the darling of the people and their uncrowned king. He might have rested on the honors he had won, but he was not the man to rest but still to say with the Master he followed through the forty years of life that remained for him, "I have work to do, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished." He fought the battle of free trade for England, through which she has prospered so wonderfully and rejoices as a strong man to run a race against all the world and win; and he was of Channing's mind in this, who said: "Free trade is the plain interest and the plain duty of the human race. To level all barriers to free exchange, to cut up the system (of protection) root and branch, to open every port on earth to every product, this is the system of enlightened humanity," and I can only wish now I had time to follow him through all these years and tell you what was done in them by this man who came for a witness; but I left my old home very soon after the great battle was won for the poor man's loaf. So from this time, all the things he did came through the distance. Yet they may be told in the words I read to you from the great old prophet, for, of all men in his generation in England, he might say what he never thought of saying in these words: "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.”

I can only note the grand stroke he struck for us and ours when the classes but never the masses of England would

fain have seen the republic dismembered. He said:

"This war for the Union, be it successful or not, be it Christian or not, be it wise or not, is a war to sustain the government and authority of the American Republic. And the people of England, if they are wise, can have no sympathy with the men who would build up a great empire on the perpetual bondage of millions of men." That was the text; the sermon is in the American heart, which turns so tenderly this day toward his grave. The people of England, The People, were wise. This man who came to bear witness of the light foresaw with those good seer's eyes that the day of the Lord was at hand; and when from below, where they stood, the people of England, my people, cried to him: "Watchman, what of the night?" he answered: "The night cometh and the morning"; and it was so. And they saw it with him, a chosen band of England's noble men. William E. Forster said to me when the morning had come: "We never saw the day when we did not believe with our whole heart that the Union would be maintained, and slavery abolished soon or late." It was to the American mind and heart the grandest passage in John Bright's noble life, and it will be held in everlasting remembrance.

Do you ask me what shall be said touching his refusal to fall into line with Mr. Gladstone in his fight for home rule in Ireland? I answer: John Bright's record down to that time takes care of itself. Ireland had no better or faster friend. And I am not sure that he would ever have followed the great leader of the Commons of England in this fight for home rule in one section of the Empire with the rest left behind. But be this as it may, it was my fortune to meet him with some little intimacy six years ago, and hear him speak, not in public, but at the fireside, where many questions came up; and my feeling then was that his good day's work was done and his noble record made. Indeed, he threw up his grand, white head after one passage at arms with certain eager young radicals, his fellow members,

who wanted to tease the old lion, and said with the sweetest smile I ever saw: "I wonder if I am not growing conservative." I make no apology for him; he needs none; he was John Bright. Say if you will, he should have done otherwise. I say no. he was true to the light that shone for him, dimmed it may be, but true to the light.

And if you ask last of all, what was his faith? I answer, it was a sure faith in God through this inward light as he had been taught to believe in it by his good Quaker mother; in justice and judgment, in loving kindness and tender mercy, in peace and good-will, and in the truth. He clung to the end to the plain old faith of "Friends" and though wearing no broad phylactery, rather loved a broad brimmed hat. The little circumstance is remembered of the great and devouring week in Durham when he was elected for the first time to Parliament, but was home all the same by Sunday to take his place as door keeper in the Friends' meeting. It touches his life as a Friend very sweetly and very truly. He was still a door keeper, but loved rather to open than to close the doors, and would by no means have them rest on their hinges.

But beyond and far above this as well as by it, John Bright's religious life lay in his holy mission to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound, and to comfort all that mourn through the tyranny of the strong over the weak and the helpless, the ignorant, and those that are out of the way.

Here lay his noble and faithful and gentle heart. An Englishman to the very marrow of his bones, he could not be the insular Englishman who cares only for England and believes only in that for which he cares. It was a great and generous heart, and wise, which now lies so still; which beat first and most eagerly for England, then for the greater Britain all the world over, then, as I think of him, for this republic, daughter of his great mother by birthright, and then for the whole round world, for freedom and truth in the heart and life, and that which the fathers and founders

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOHN BRIGHT.

During my ministry in Birmingham it was my fortune to be thrown a good deal into political activity. As a member of the Council of the National Lib. eral Federation, and for some few years its organizing secretary, I was privileged to meet with men of political eminence, and to hear some of the best efforts of England's best statesmen. Once a year for several years it was my good luck to dine with Mr. Bright at Mr. Chamberlain's, and, in the company of the young and active politicians of the town, to enjoy brief social intercourse with him. The venerable statesman was always considerate and kindly towards young politicians. We regarded him with profound reverence, and felt it to be the privilege of our lives to receive the slightest notice from him, and if, as was to be expected, we were shy and diffident in his presence, he was not slow to put us at our ease. He conversed freeÎy with us, elicited our opinions, smiled at our crude notions, corrected us pleasantly when we made mistakes, and altogether treated our raw inexperience with considerate tenderness. At dinner, and on the eve of a great speech, it was his habit to be taciturn, and apparently absorbed in the work before him, but after the speech, when we sat in a quiet circle in our host's library or smoking room, he unbent to the occasion, and was the most interesting and entertaining of conversationalists. Then he would indulge in personal reminiscences of the eminent statesmen of his time, and tell interesting stories of Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, Richard Cobden, and Lord John Russell, or touching upon some current question

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he would throw upon it the light of his marvellous sagacity. His personal presence was an inspiration, and as I think of his fine physique, his broad shoulders, his masculine face so full of power and moral earnestness, his eye that sparkled with humor or flashed with indignation, it is easy to see the secret of his striking influence both as a man and an orator. He seemed in everything the impersonation of conscience and character. reputation had never been sullied by wickedness or weakness. He had gathered for himself a fame as universal as his sympathies, as pure as his own life, and as elevated as his splendid abilities. I have looked into a good many faces in my time, but none impressed me so deeply with the majesty and the illuminating force of moral rectitude. His views on every subject of political discussion were not those of a mere theorist or visionary, but resulted from his great personality, a wide sympathy with the sufferings of men, and a wonderful combination of good sense, courage, and inspired prescience. No question of his time, having for its object the promotion of the general weal, lacked the powerful aid of his moral support and matchless oratory.

The first time I heard him deliver a great speech was in October, 1873. He had just returned to public life after a prolonged sickness. He had been absent from the House of Commons for two years, and in that time his hair had turned from gray to white. He addressed his constituents in Bingley Hall. The building, which is rather lowroofed, and is generally used as a place for cattle shows, was thronged with fifteen thousand people. He appeared among the electors for the first time as a Cabinet Minister. Mr. Gladstone had with difficulty persuaded him to accept the office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The reserve seats were filled with visitors from all parts of the Empire, the platform was crowded with members of Parliament and men of political note, and nearly a hundred addresses of congratulation were presented to him from various bodies. As he stood up to speak he was quite over