/ E 469 / -8 .M41 Copy 1 INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. REPORT OF THE FAREWELL MEETING REV. J. W/MASSIE, D. D., OF LONDON, BROADWAY TABERNACLE CHURCH, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBEK 27, 1863. ^ ,^ . 1883 NEW YORK: ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH, No. 683 BROADWAY. 1863. w'ej^/ /r^ INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. / KEPOKT OF THE FAEEWELL MEETING REV. J. W. MASSTE. D. D., OF LONDOIS' , BROADWAY TABERNACLE CHURCH, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 27, 1863. NEW YORK: ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH, No. 683 BROADWAY. 1863. EDWAED O. JENKINS, ^Printer, No. 20 NoETH William St. Inttrnatioiwl ^Binp!it|ies. EEV. DR. MASSIe's VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES. A few words in regard to the origin and the jjurpose of the Manchester depntation to this country, will serve to introduce the following report of the Farewell Meeting for Dr. Massie, at the Tabernacle. In September, 1862, the French Branch of the Evangelical Alliance addressed to the British Branch of the same organization, the suggestion that the British Branch slioiild issue some declaration of sympathy and en- couragement to their Christian brethren in America, who are contending in the interest of humanity and of the gospel against a Confederacy based upon slavery as its corner-stone. The British Branch, at its meeting in London, October 16th, 1862, evaded this request by a vague resolution, deploring the civil war in America, and " the fearful amount of blood- shed and suffering to which it has led," but utterly failing to discriminate between the North and the South, or to recog- nize the great principles of justice, order, freedom, humanity, which the Amei'ican people are maintaining against an insur- rection of slaveholders and the propagandists of slavery. That resolution was read in this country with universal sur- pi'ise and regret, and by many with a pity for the British Evangelical Alliance, that bordered upon contempt. As- suredly, it was a most meager and unworthy utterance from a 4 INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. grave and responsible body of Christian men in a momentous crisis of Christian civilization ! Aggrieved by this action, or rather this studied avoidance of action by the "British Branch " of the Alliance, the evan- gelical pastors of Paris, taking counsel of Rev, J. W. Massie, D. D. LL. D., of London, — who visited Paris soon after, — issued a new address directly to " the Ministers and Pastors of all evangelical denominations in Great Britain." In this address, dated at Paris, February 12, 1863, they urge their British brethi-en to take the lead in calling forth "a great and peaceful manifestation of sympathy for the colored race," and tlius to " discourage the partizans of slavery," and to " strengthen and encourage those who wish to abolish it." They declare that " no more revolting spectacle has ever been set before the civilized world than a Confederacy, consisting mainly of Protestants, forming itself, and demanding inde- pendence in the nineteenth century of the Christian era, with the design, boldly avowed, of maintaining and propagating slavery ; and that the triumph of such a cause would put back the progress of Christian civilization and of humanity a whole century." They express their earnest desire that '' the sincere Christians of Europe should give to the cause of emancipation a powerful testimony which would leave to tliose who tight for the right of oppressing the slaves no hope of ever seeing those Christians give them the hand of fellowship." This address, subscribed by nearly eight hundred Evangeli- cal ministers of France, was forwarded to Dr. Massie, at Lon- don, who submitted it to a conference of ministers convened in that city in May, 1863, over which the Hon. and Rev. Baptist W. Noel presided. This Conference adopted a form of reply to the French address, fully endorsing its views, and declaring that they [the London Conference] " wish by all means in their power to discourage those who are seeking to found an empire on the degradation of the negro race," and that the}' " wish success to all just and humane measui-es for the deliverance of the slaves." This reply was widely sent to Evangelical ministers in Great Britain, in the form of a circu- INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. 5 liir, soliciting their signatures. By the close of May, upwards of four thousand certified signatures of ministers had been re- turned ; and on the 3d of June, a conference for the public ratification of these proceedings, was held in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, at which Rev. Ricliard Slate, of Preston, presided. This Conference adopted an earnest and fraternal " Address to ministers and pastors of all Christian denomina- tions throughout the States of America," in the course of which they declare their solemn conviction that " no darker or more dreary calamity could threaten any nation or people on earth than the successful establishment of a republic whose corner stone is the slavery of the working-man." This ad- dress, full of strong anti-slavery sentiments, and of hearty good-will toward the government and the people of the United States, was entrusted to Rev. J. W. Massie, D. D., L L. D., of London, and Rev. J. H. Rylance, of St. Paul's, Westminster, as the messengers of the Conference to the churches of the United States. Dr. Massie made his first address in x\merica, at the Broad- way Tabernacle Church, New York, on the evening of July 5th ; and his farewell address was given in the same church on the evening of September 27th. That address, reported in tlie following pages, gives a general account of Dr. Massie's labors in his important, honorable, and highly useful mission. THE FAREWELL MEETING. At an early hour the spacious church was thronged by an eager congregation. After every nook within the building was occupied, hundreds went away unable to gain admittance. The service opened with the chorus from Mendelssohn's St. Paul, " How lovely are the messengers that preach us the gospel of peace." Dr. Thompson announced that Rev. Dr. Smith, President elect of Dartmouth College, would preside over the exercises of the evening. Rev. Dr. Smith. — "Without pausing to speak particularly, at 6 INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. this point, of the ohject of the meeting, — an object under- stood, in general, by the whole andience,— I will call upon the Rev. Milton Badger, D. D., one of the Secretaries of the American Home Missionary Society, to read the Scriptures, and invoke the blessing of Clod u])on this occasion. Dr. Badger then read the 46th Psalm, and offered Prayer. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS OF REV. ASA D. SMITH, D. D. You are apprised, as I have said, of the purpose for which we have gathered ; and it is one, I ain sure, which enlists the warmest sympathies of every individual in this vast assembly. It is an object not of parochial interest merely, or metropoli- tan, or national ; it rises to an international gravity and dignity. It is known to j'ou, that some months ago, the Rev. Dr. Massie and the Rev. Mr. Rylance came to this country as a Deputation from a large number of English clergymen. It was on the 30th day of June last, they landed on our shores. A few of us — and I shall always esteem it one of the felicities of my life that I was of the number— had the privilege of bidding them welcome, and of holding initial conference with them in regard to the purpose of their visit. There were many reasons why we rejoiced in their coming. We had marked with pain the alienation from us in our great national struggle — from the cause of Union and of freedom which we maintain — of a portion at least of our British brethren. The attitude of the Government and the aristocracy had grieved us, the complicity with the Rebellion of the ship-building and mercantile interest, and the tone, in general, of the chief guides and organs of public sentiment. We were not sur- prised at the position of the tory Blackwood^ but when the North British declared against us, we could not but say, Et tu, Brute! Most grateful to us, in such circumstances, was the voice of Christian sympathy as it sounded over the great and wide sea. Had the Deputation come to us only in their own names, or as the re])resentatives of a few like-minded, we should have greeted them gladly. But when they bore to us, INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. 7 and to the Ministers and Chnrclies of our land, an Address from fonr thousand Ministers of the Gospel in Great Britain, and, virtually, from some eight hnndred Protestant clergymen in France, an address of the kindest and most sympathetic sort, expressing the deepest and most friendly interest in our momentous conflict, the fullest harmony with us in our ab- horrence of that system of slavery which underlies the Rebel- lion, and which is destined, we trust, to perish with it, and assuring us of their earnest desires and prayers for our suc- cess ; when they came, I say, with such a message, and with a correspondent personal bearing, we had special reasons for receiving them with the utmost cordiality, and for furthering, in every way, their embassy of peace, of freedom, and of catholic Christianity. A meeting was soon held, composed of clergymen of various denominations, at which the Rev. Fkancis Yinton, D. D., of the Episcopal Church, ofliciated as chairman, and the Rev. Joseph T. Duryea, of the Reformed Dutch Church, as Sec- retary. After full conference, a response to the British Ad- dress was adopted, which has been signed not only by those present, but by many other clergymen in various parts of the United States. That Address will be read to you by the Rev, Mr. DuKYEA. Even those who have already heard it, will listen to it again witli pleasure. In the course of the evening, Dr. Massie will speak to us of his extensive journeyings in our country ; of the cordial reception he has everywhere met ; of the other formal responses he has received, and will bear back with him ; and of all he has seen — for I am sure he has seen much — of hopeful and encouraging imj^ort, as to the future of the Republic. He came to our city, let me add, at a most inauspicious juncture. It was just on the eve of the Great Riot. He will remember that Monday evening, when I accompanied him as he went to fulfill an appointment at one of the most prominent of our colored churches. We found the church prudently closed, and the minister a fugitive from the mob in the retired dwelling of one of his own parishion- ers — the inmates thereof trembling at the peril not of their 8 INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. property alone, but of their lives. I blushed for my country ; and but for some things I remembered even in English his- tory, I might, in the presence of my venerable friend, have blushed more deeply. I rejoice that he has remained with us, not only till the riot has been suppressed, and law and justice vindicated, but until lessons have been read, in the light of those fearful conflagrations, of most salutary bearing on the great issue now pending. He came to us when the clouds seemed to be growing darker in our national sky, and the hearts of many were failing them for fear. As he leaves us, the clouds are parting, the stars are shining out again, and he rejoices with us in the assurance, that the whole firmament will soon be clear and bright above us. After some further preliminary exercises, we shall listen with pleasure to his fare- well utterances, and then, in some few parting words, bid him God-speed on his w^ay. Rev. J. T. DuKYEA, of the Collegiate Dutch Church, then read the following response by ministers of New York to the British Address : '' Reverend and Dear Brethren : — We have received with much pleasure the ' Address to Ministers and Pastors of all Christian Denominations throughout the States of America,' adopted by the 'Anti-Slavery Conference of Ministers of Re- ligion,' held in the city of Manchester, on the 3d of June, 1863, and presented to us by the Rev. James W. Massie, D. D., LL. D., of London, and the Rev. J. H. Rylance, M. A., of Westminster, who were appointed a deputation for that purpose. "■ The personal character of the gentlemen composing this deputation, and the honorable and dignified assemblage which they represent, bespeak for the Address our most respectful attention. And its importance is enhanced by the considera- tion that it represents not only the immediate conference at Manchester, but also 4,000 ministers of Great Britain and 750 ministers of France, who had agreed in protesting against the INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. 9 recognition of ' a Confederacy which lays down as the corner- stone of its constitution the system of slavery as it exists at present in the Southern States.' That so many intelligent and thoughtful men in the ministry of the Gospel should have united in such a protest, is equally honorable to them and gratifying and encoui-aging to us. " Perhaps we ought not to wonder, and certainly we will not now complain, that the severe struggle in which we are en- gaged is looked upon by our Transatlantic brethren so exclu- sively in its relations to ti>e 4,000,000 of Africans held in bondage upon our soil. As Christian men, we also are fully awake to the sin and the shame of American slavery, and are instant in pra^'er to God, that the time may be at hand when this hateful institution, which has inspired the present gigantic rebellion, shall be utterly destroyed. "But we are Americans, contending in arms for the preser- vation of our national life, and for all the great interests of constitutional liberty and order, which are at stake upon the issue of this conflict. The dismemberment of our Republic would be, not merely the loss of territory and power to the Federal Union, not merely the ruin of existing forms and in- stitutions of Government, but the downfall of constitutional liberty itself upon the North American continent. Nor can there be any well-founded hope of ultimate deliverance for the enslaved among us, but in the triumph of our arms. This contest is, in its last analysis, a struggle between antagonistic civilizations —the one asserting and vindicating the dignity of labor, the other scorning labor, and trampling it under foot. " That we are to succeed in this struggle, and by the blessing of God come out of it an unbroken nation, we do not doubt. It appears to us also to be the purpose of Providence that the rebellion and its guilty cause shall be buried in the same grave. In this, as Christian men, we do greatly rejoice. It sweetens the bitterness of our present lot to believe that in vindicating, against an inexcusable conspiracy, the just and beneficent authority of the nation, at so great a cost of treasure and of 10 INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. blood, we are cat the same time serving the cause of universal liberty. " We thank yon, dear brethren, for your words of cheer. We rejoice in the fellowship of the saints. And most heartily do we unite our prayers with yours that the powerful Christian nations to which we respectively belong may never be arrayed against each other in deadly strife, but may stand up together for the maintenance of righteousness, of peace, and of free- dom. And to this end may the Christian people of these na- tions cultivate a mutual respect and regard, and be ready to co-operate in any good work for the welfare of mankind and the advancement of Christ's kingdom in the world. Tkancis H. Vinton, Chairman. Joseph T. Duryea, Secretary^ After the reading of the address, the congregation joined in singing the following stanzas : Hail to the Lord's Anointed, Great David's greater Son ! Hail, in the time appointed, His reign on earth begun ! He conies to break oppression, To set the captive free ; To take away transgression, And rule in equity. He shall come down like showers Upon the fruitful earth ; And love, joy, hope, like flowers, Spring in his path to birth ; Before Him on the mountains Shall Peace, the herald, go ; And righteousness in fountains, From hill to valley flow. The President. — We will now listen to the Rev. Dr. Armi- tage of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. 11 SPEECH OF REV. THOMAS AEMITAGK, D. D, Solomon assures us that like as cold water is to a thirsty- soul, so is good news from a far country. How beautiful, then, are the feet of these English brethren who bring to us a word of cheer from four thousand men of God in Great Bri- tain to the men of God in the great Kepublic, saying to us, in the midst of our contest for liberty and life : " Be strong, fear not, behold your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence, he will come and save you." One of the most striking facts accompanying the address of the four thousand seven hundred and fifty signers of this address, and one of those facts wJiich quicken our impulses of gratitude to them for that utterance is, that the great majority of these signers, are by dii'ect lineage, sons of the great English Revo- lution. This is a great fact in connection with this move- ment. They are men whose fathers suffered fearful privations and passed through fearful contests under the odious tests of civil and religious oppression in past ages, and laid the foun- dations of English liberty in the blood of civil war. Their love of liberty in the mibryo was cherished and nourished at Naseby and Marston Moor, and when the ghastly head of Charles I. fell upon the pavement of Whitehall, its pulse caught the first throb of a life immortal. The blind bard of England rivaled the choir of Bethlehem in swelling its na- tivity anthem, and Cromwell and Sidney and Hampden were the sages by whose hands " the isles did bring presents, and all kings did fall down and offer gifts." The proud boast of all English law and liberty is attributable to their bravery and death-defiance, which held the Thermopylae of freedom against overwhelming odds. Britain holds it precious heri- tage to-day by the tenure of their unswerving firmness and self-sacrifice, which dared to assert over the gurgling blood from the throat of the Stuart, that thenceforth, parallel with the existence of God, the blood of a tyrant should never warm upon the British throne. From that day to this. Eng- lishmen have been free. I say, then, it is a tribute to the 12 INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. power of the truth and au honor to humanity to see four thou- sand men — sons of such sires — step forth after a lapse of two hundred years and say to their brethren of the same old stock in the new world ; " We pledge our moral sympathies and support to the unyielding maintenance of a common inter- national patrimony." It is a beautiful thing — it is an honor to God and an honor to man. As American Republicans we have very little to hope, as our venerable brother, the delegate from Great Britain has informed us, we have very little to hope from the aristocratic chivalry of Great Britain. True to the instincts of paternity, they are one and inseparable with their bastard progeny of the Southern Confederacy. In their case, the old proverb holds good: "The fathers did eat sour grapes; and the children's teeth are set on edge." The aristocracy of Great Britain have no ministry — no chosen ministry in earthen ves- sels — to send forth to the church in the wilderness — this is not a dogma in their gospel. There is no man of like passions in all their tribes whom they have sent forth on a mission of salutation to speak words of cheer to the democratic liberty- loving flock that grazes in these green pastures. They are swift to sharpen the teeth of the piratical wolf, and to strengthen the horns of the rams of l!^ebaioth. They are ready to let them loose upon us as the best interpreters of their notions of inno- cence and inofiensiveness, but as to the ministry of liberty and equality, and fraternity, it is not an order in their sys- tem of embassy. The diplomacy of Pharaoh is their chosen method of utterance, muttering of wrath and hatred, and cruelty and ruin ; and, forsooth, because the aristocracy of Great Britain have chosen in this contest between law and anarchy, right and wrong, liberty and tyranny, — to appeal to violence, we are obliged to meet them on that issue, and we do meet them just there. In order to cure the bane of Pharaoh, the Lord threw aside the ministry of men, and invoked the fearful ministry of desolating angels with infallible eflect. Verily, then, as the Lord liveth, and as we are, in sympathy with the God of INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. 13 liberty, who summoned that agency in Egyptian retribution, — our only answer to the aristocracy of Britain, in this matter? must be heard through the m3^stic, sepulchral throat of the ebon angel who revels in the death-swamp of South Carolina. But a truce to all this ; we are here to thank our venerable brother and our Christian brethren in the British isles for the generous and out-spoken assurances of their God-speed upon us, in our war with this unholy rebellion. We are here to bid adieu to the venerable representative of a larger and a nobler and more potent class of her Majesty's subjects. These brethren have addressed to us their sympathies, their affections and their encouragements, and the address which they send to us is fraught with the largest catholicity of our common Christianity — it is warm with radiant love for the renovation and elevation of all classes, grades and colors in our political federation. It rings with the heart-cheering truths which have kept march with the religion of redemption in all ages. Sir, we thank you for your message, and will you be kind enough, to say to the Christians of Great Britain, that we heartily thank our brethren for this expression of their con- fidence in the success of our cause ? I do here to-night — speaking for myself, and I think for the denomination which I represent, leaving other gentlemen to speak for their denomi- nations — I do here to-night, in my own behalf, and in behalf of a million of Baptist hearts in the United States — as warm hearts as beat to the sound of liberty under the flag of our government, sincerely thank you. The address w'hich you have brought to us, is unpretentious in its style, and, perhaps, under all the circumstances, is wisely circumscribed as to its matter. But it possesses a magic whicii cannot be couched in labored embellishment and glittering generalities. Bind its plain homely Saxon to your heart, and you will feel the throb that has been beating time ever since God breathed into man the breath of life, and "endowed him wdth certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- piness." That address in its key-note and in its key-stone — in 14 INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. its Alpha and Omega — in its beginning and its end, \^ freedom. Our brother brings to us from across the Atlantic but one idea. But it is a glorious sight to see a venerable Christian minister, whose head is white with years, and white with labors, and white as a crown of honor, — at his period in life, volunteering to- brave the storms and dangers of the Atlantic twice, to whis- per into the eai-s of Republicans the great idea of that address. It is but one idea, but it is the grandest idea that ever ex- panded the human brain, that ever stirred the human spirit. When these four thousand men put their signatures to that address, they said, what? "This is the expression of our love for freedom, absolute, unconditional, untrampled, universal freedom^ This great idea was a unit in the four thousand minds which you represent. It was a pillow of down under the head to your own martyrs when they sunk to slumber upoii their own ashes in Smithfield. It is the nerve that has strengthened the arm of every true British patriot from the time of the Conquest down to the deatli of Havelock. It has been pinions to every one of your poets, and, like your own lark, the higher they have soared the sweeter they have sung, until enraptured by the emotions of freedom, they have flapped their wings against the lattice-work of the very gate of Heaven. It is the idea which has saturated every acre of British soil with the best blood of your heroes ; it is the idea which has built an altar upon every hill-top that stretches, through your realm ; it is the idea which has kindled a flame upon everj^ British hearth-stone in the fatherland ever since the first ember of civilization was kindled in ancient Britain^ sometimes burning lighth^, sometimes burning dimly, but always burning. This address from the fatherland shows that, notwithstand- ing all efforts to smother that fire, when once a plebian rail- splitter blows away the ashes, the white spark is glowing still. [Applause.] I say, then, we hail these men, and we hail their address, and we hail the idea which they bring to us, and we will say, in our reply to them, " Keep stirring the fire, and let it bm-n." Already it has burned with sucK INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. 15 intensity in its reflex glow upon the English shores, that it has forged a chain across the Mersey, from Liverpool to Birken- head, which the rams of I^ebaioth can not break. [Applause.] I say, keep stirring it up ; let the fire burn. I am not with- out hope that its intensity will smelt down that haughty self- ishness in the upper room of Westminster, which is ready to shake with laughter on the arrival of intelligence that the Ee- public has fallen. I am not without hope that there shall yet rise up in the House of Lords a second Chatham, who will stand in his place and say, in 1863, as the first Chatham said, in 1776, " Your lordships must respect their cause, and wish to make it your own." Let American liberty assert itself, and it shall be felt and heeded even in the House of Lords. At any rate, whatever the British Government may do, we are sure of this, that there is an enlargedness, a strength, and an ascendancy about the vital religion of England, which will cleave to the Republic in its fiery battle-days. Freedom has a song, and British Christians know how to sound its chord. You have heard the address which we send back to these brethren. I think that address is worthy of us. Now, Brit- ish Christians have never doubted our courage, never ques- tioned it at all ; and, therefore, it was not necessary to say anything to them about our being wrapped in steel or clothed in fire, and we did not tell them that we would whip them if they did not let us alone and keep their mischievous rams to themselves : of course we did not do that. [Laughter.] To be sure, we know that we can do it, if they absolutely insist upon it [Applause] ; but then we didn't say anything about that. But we did say that we were free-born ; we did say, when we take our inheritance, we do not ask alms of any nation ; we did say that we should blush to disturb the quiet slumbers of Milton, and Hampden, and Cromwell, by turning traitors to our country ; we did say, in that address, that we have learned certain elements of political science, and mas- tered certain rudiments of national unity and constitutional liberty, which we shall be slow to abjure under any circum- stances. We have said simply that we will forego no right, 16 INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. that we will endure no wrong. We intend to stand in that address like men in the true attitude of Christian prayer, ask- ing God to vindicate our cause, and seeking the benediction of Jehovah both upon the head of G-reat Britain and upon the head of the Great Republic ; and there we will ever stand, so God help us. [Applause.] SPEECH OF DR. MASSIE. You will not expect tliat I should specially respond to all that has been uttered here this evening, but I shall occupy a few moments in perliaps just giving a tone or two to reduce the strength of some expressions which have been used by my estimable friend. 1 will not answer for what John Bull might say if he were here ; and I am not about to reciprocate by asserting what we Englishmen can do when we are put to it. I will only say that it is a characteristic of John Bull never to know when he is beaten. I hope the time is far distant — as far beyond the millennium as it is till the millennium come — so far distant that England and America shall try their mettle one against another. [Applause.] I am not sure that I should say all that has been said about the aristocracy of England, were I to speak the truth. The honorable and reverend Baptist Noel is the son of a peer and the brother of a peer, and he and I conferred in the prepara- tion of that address. I had written it, and I asked his opinion of it ; he made his suggestions, and approved the whole, but he preferred that I should continue to be the author of it. But he is only one of such of the aristocracy as the Suther- lands— the Duchess of Sutherland and her brother, the Earl of Carlyle, the Viceroy of the Queen in Ireland ; the Duke of Argyle, her son-in-law, who has sustained well and nobly the cause of the United States, — and others of the aristo- cracy. I am an Englishman ; and there are defects in the English Constitution ; but I believe that there are as good men wearing coronets and bearing the titles of lords and dukes as there are bearing the plain name which I bear, and we are INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. 17 thankful to them for all that thej can do for ns. [Applause.] Our Queen, I believe, in her heart loves and is grateful to America and American citizens for the favor shown to the Prince of Wales. [Applause.] To her late husband as well as to her, much was due for the prevention of what was evil, years ago, in the intercourse of the two nations ; and, I have no doubt, that her son will remember as long as he is a prince, and if he should come to be king — fondly remember the more than courteous attentions that were paid to him ; cer- tainly he would be an unnatural man if he did not ; and I believe he will be ready at a suitable time, to testify that he owes to America much gratitude. [Applause.] Having thus cleared my way — lest I should have to give an account of mj^self when I go to England — having thus cleared the wa}^, I leave my brother to answer for his address, and I am sure that the million Baptists will be proud of their rep- resentative, and feel that they have had one who could speak well, whether to the king or to the people. I come now to that which belongs to myself. It was here that I was first presented to an American audience. The as- sembly was large, but it was nothing in comparison with this. We have lost nothing then in your sympathies — we have lost nothing in your good will by the intervening time, or by the events that have happened during the progress of that time. I feel personally indebted to those that are here assembled ; I know not that I shall ever forget — I believe I shall not — my intercourse with America ; but the first and the last of that intercourse will be connected with Broadway Tabernacle — its excellent and loving minister, and the loving people that as- sembled within its walls in order that I might have an inter- view with them. My interest was first awakened in this great contest by my love to Americans, by my earnest, cordial, heartfelt sympa- thy with the Pilgrim Fathers : the reason of their exile, the principles which they established when they occupied the soil of America at the first, and the kind of government which they sought to perpetuate in all parts of this vast continent. 18 INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. I felt my sympathies engaged with them because they suffered in my fatlierhmd for the principles \vhich I hold sacred. It was my Puritan ancestry that, for the same principle, fought and suffered and lay in dungeons, while your New England fathers were seeking a home across the waves of the Atlantic. I felt interested in you because I looked at the American people as possessing the blood and spirit of a common ancestry, and as engaged in diffusing good pi-inciples at home, and in manifesting that kind of government that is a model to other nations, that is a stimulant to the land where I dwell, and is sometimes so very much deprecated and de- .plored by the aristocracy to which reference has been made, because it is not a cheat of a government, because it is a pop- ular government, because it is a government that rules the country without an established church, and because it pre- sents a field of enterprise where the poor may rise, and the humblest, from being a rail-splitter, may become the great chief magistrate of this mighty Republic. [Applause.] I sympathize in this cause, because I believe that, were England and America to be one — let them continue as they were in principles, in sympathies, in religious elements, in re- ligious objects — then would tiiey work together in heathen lands for the conversion of the heathen ; then would they work together for the extinction of persecution and despot- ism in every land ; then would they have a moral influence and power that would force other governments to the adop- tion of a similar polity, or, at least, of that which is produc- tive of the good of the people. ISTow, I came to America under that influence. Again, I do not suppose that you are all old Americans, be- longing to the old stock. In my lifetime, there have come to America hundreds of thousands, I may say millions, of peo- ple from my fatherland. They have come in my early youth, they have come in my riper years. When a child, I lay in bed, and heard my father read a letter from a near relative, who had come to this city ; (no small period has elapsed since I was a child) — my father read that letter from that inti INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. 19 mate relative and friend, which said, "This is a broad land, and there is plenty in it, and to spare ; come, and yon shall have a welcome." From that day to this, my kindred have mingled with the people of this city, have risen to places of intlnence and authority amongst the people of this conntry; and even now, 'twas but the other day, a nephew of my own came to meet me at a station ; he had his right arm in a sling, and, when he undid the bandage, his right hand exhibited only a linger and a thumb ; and he had won that scar of honor as a lieutenant of the Rhode Island Artillery, in North Carolina. [Applause.] His father's family and other kindred of mine are within your borders. And so it is with ten thousand families in England ; so it is with a hundred thousand families in Ireland. Their kindred of this genera- tion mingle with the people of this country now ; and is it not natural that we and you should have sympathy with one an- other, that in your prosperity we should rejoice, and that in your adversity we should have sorrow? I tell you it is so. I came to tell you that it is so. We, in England and in Scot- land have a strong and earnest passion for liberty. Those whom my friend represented as the sons of the Puritans — the non-conformists of England— love liberty for themselves, and it is a good thing to think that they love liberty for others as well. The friends of emancipation for the negro, in England — those wdio carried that bill through Parliament in Great Britain — were chiefly of the non-conformist party of England, Scotland, and Ireland ; and therefore did we look with earnest concern and intelligent thoughtfulness to America, to ask what you were doing. At the very opening of your wai-, we were some of us prepared to say that you were doing right. We perceived that those who rebelled from your government were doing so that they might establish a slave power. They de- clared that the corner-stone of their constitution was the slavery of the negro race. They told us that it was because you were nsinginlluences to repress their slave-power that they resisted the authority of your new President ; and we reasoned from their formulas what was your intention in the matter. 20 INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. Let me here put jou right in reference to a very Large number in England who have not signed our address to the pastors of America. Thousands of ministers have not signed it that are the champions of the abolition of slavery, because they were under the impression that you in the North were not really and earnestly engaged in the struggle for the aboli- tion of slavery. At the first, circumstances would not permit to be made the clear and distinct line of development, which has since been drawn in your country. It was necessary that your President and cabinet should consolidate their ad- ministrative power before they could in any wise declare the manifestation of their policy ; and for a time they remained in that position. But, when your President issued his warn- ing that there would be a proclamation of liberty for the slaves of all those that were in rebellion, from the time that that proclamation was sent forth with the signature of his hand, there has not been a hesitating moment in the minds of those with whom I have been acting in this matter. It was to strengthen the hands of those that were with your Presi- dent, that my countrymen sent forth this address. They sent their representatives, that we might tell you by word of mouth that which our address proclaims — that we never will recog- nize a republic founded upon the slavery of the workingman. [Applause.] We came with that in view; and my mission was to ministers and pastors, and through them to their people. My first mission was to your President. I bore to him a message, personally addressed to him, and expressed in a manner suited to the position which he occupies. I shall not repeat what passed, but it is proper that I tell you simply what impression the interview produced on my mind. I saw the kind Secretary for Foreign Afi'airs, and I communicated with him fully and frankl3^ I had an interview with Lord Lyons, the English Ambassador at Washington — quite a pro- tracted interview. I laid the documents before him. He said he was glad that I had come on such a mission. [Ap- plause.] He wished me success, and thought it most desir- INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. 21 able that I should see Mr. Lincoln. I was then introduced to your President. We spent a half hour together, no one present with us, in the freest converse and with the most intimate reference to the affairs that had brought me and that had occupied his mind. I, of my own accord, retired without waiting for his time to be exhausted. I will not mention what took place, but I will give you the impression that interview produced upon my mind: it is, that he is heart and soul tlie friend of the slave ; it is that he has re- solved by all the influence in his power to seek the freedom of every slave who is in the American territory. [Applause.] It is, that the proclamation which he has issued shall not go back in one expression — in one clause or sentence in reference to the liberty of the negro. [Applause.] I stated all this in public before I saw his letter to his friends at Springfield, in Illinois — but I am confident of the truth of what I say now; and I add this, that he is the friend of his country — that he is a man honest and most devoted, as I believe, to the office which he holds, and that he is, as I believe, an honest and a true Christian, living in the fear of God. [Applause.] In passing through Philadelphia and Washington, I had interviews with ministers and congregations ; I passed through New Haven, Hartford, Springfield and Worcester, and sev- eral places in the vicinity, where I had also interviews with ministers and congregations ; — I twice attended meet- ings which I was pressed to attend in the city of Boston, the first in the largest Congregational church, and the second in Tremont Temple ; I received there, an address, that was full of interest and full of patriotism and full of Christian philosophy ; I passed down to Providence, and then to Port- land, and there, too, was I warmly welcomed, receiving as- surances in writing from the friends with whom I became acquainted ; I passed through Lawrence ; — the other day a little village hardly to be seen among the woods : to-day a town with its many thousand inhabitants, grateful and agree- able, and there I must appear twice ; — the first day I was there was your thanksgiving-day by the appointment of the 22 INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. President, and the ministers asked me to conduct your thanksgiving service, and to deliver the address, which I did with all my heart, calling upon the people to pray earnestly for the President; I then attended an Anniversary meeting, held at Andover, and passed down through Boston to Sara- toga ; at Saratoga I had conversations with many clergymen of different denominations ; I then went on to Rochester, to Buifalo, to Cleveland, to Chicago, to Cincinnati, to St. Louis upon the Mississippi, to Louisville, to Columbus, to Pitts- burgh and to Alban}^, and thus I undertook to ascertain the tone of feeling and the sentiment of the people. The cordi- ality and affection of the people in the "West were truly pleasing; I believe in the vast prairies of Illinois and Indiana, we have all the religious principles and sympathies of New England. I found in those regions, that, as far as Missouri, the anti-slavery sentiment has taken full hold of the people, and that those who used to be accounted monsters in Eng- land, the Missouri ruffians of some twelve years ago, are now the Missouri abolitionists, resolved that their state shall be delivered of the curse of slaverj^ and that immediately. [Applause.] I heard often, as I passed by the wayside, in your cars, general talk about " that man, Massie." " Have you heard hira say" so and so? In the hotels, seated on the outside where the people were cooling themselves, I heard them talk- ing of " that man from England — Massie — and what he had been saying." I therefore felt, that not as a spy, but as an open and outspoken advocate of that which is true and liberal, I had learned the sentiment of the people of this country, and I think I can tell you in a few words what that feeling is in reference to slavery, in the enlightened and the purely and strongly religious portion of the people. Among ministers and Christian professors in every part where I have been — Presby- terians earnestly; Methodists intensely; Baptists with fer- vency ; Congregationalists with consistency, and here and there clergymen of the Episcopal church not so numerous, perhaps, as the others; but I have conversed with Bishops of that church, and had their fullest sympathy — I found all these classes INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. 23 to liav'e sown deep in their hearts this strong conviction ; tliat there would be no happiness to this countrj, no peace among the states, no return to Union by those that had become dis- united, no prospect of coming peace, no good government that would extend its influence to all parts of the country, until slavery should be destroyed, and that it must be de- stroyed and would be, to finish the rebellion, [Applause.] ISTo vindictive feeling have I seen towards the rebels. I have wondered at the calm forbearance and even tenderness of some of the devoted fi-iends of the slave, in this respect ; but the universal feeling is, tliat the rebels must give up slavery as well as the rebellion, if they would be again united ; the South must come back as subjects and not as rulers; they must take the old government again, and base the republic upon life and liberty to every man. At Columbus I went into the prison, a prison capable of holding nearly a thousand persons. I saw the portion assigned to Morgan and his fellows. It was they who had ravaged Ohio and destroyed the property of thousands. That was a sort of confinement, I dare say, they did not like, but I hope they were learning to receive good principles and to behave better when they come out. But there was no unkindues or severity of treatment toward them. Now, in reference to my own country, and tlie manner in which my message has been received by your people to whom I have gone, I think it will be one of the most interesting volumes that ever appeared in the English language, when I shall be able to put into a book the several addresses which I have received, together with the recollections of the various places which I may be able to describe in connection witli each separate address. I found a few places where the min- isters were inclined to adopt the address that has been read this evening. At Buffalo and Cincinnati this address was adopted ; also at Rochester without hesitation. And, I be- lieve, at Albany they mean to do so too. The ministers of New York State, generally, have added their names to the address which has been read to you. Among all the places 24: INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. where I have gone, there have been but two where anything like a warm expression of something that would have provoked John Bull, if he had been present, occurred. One of these was bj a young gentleman, a Professor, and the other was by an old gentleman, a Pastor. The young gentleman was after- wards met by me in another part of the country, and he declared that upon that occasion nothing of a hostile charac- ter was meant, and that there was no occasion for hostile feelings in reference to the present attitude of affairs between England and America. To the old gentleman, as I answered him, I said, that though I was an old man and griey-haired, yet I thought I might call him my father, because of his age ; and I thought it became a minister of the church to be a min- ister of peace instead of speaking of the clangor of arms> crying havoc and letting slip the dogs of war between the two na'Jons, England and America. My friends, who were present on the occasion, asked me if I had silenced him. No, not quite, because I had not undertaken that. He asked me what would compensate for the mischief that the Alabama and the Florida had committed upon American shipping. My answer to him will be my answer everywhere to every one ; I am not the government ; I do not represent it ; they have not sent me to represent the government. I represent only those that sent me — four thousand and eight ministers from my own country, and seven hundred and fifty from France. I have, though, this to say concerning the Alabama and the Florida. The Alabama stole out of the British ports ; she escaped surreptitiously to sea; she has been manned by Irish- men, Scotchmen, and Englishmen — I don't know that she has any Americans. I believe that it would have been just, on the part of the English government, to have sent an English man-of-war after her, and never ceased tracking her upon the seas until she found her, and either blew her up and every man on board, or took her and hanged every man as a pirate. [Applause.] The case of the Florida was not precisely like that of the Alabama, though she has acted in the same way; but whether INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. 25 it be tlie Alabama or the Florida, I hold that they are the speculations of individuals — that they have been sent forth by men that are a disgrace to England — that they are a disgrace to commercial men, inasmuch as they have been sent to prey upon peaceful commerce by men that have nothing to do with the war between the North and ihc South; let sucii be branded as smugglers, as thieves, and ]urates. If the American people will find out these men, they will be doing good service to the community; but do not charge this upon the people of England. I drew up a protest against the Ahibama, addressed to our government, which was approved by our Emancipation Committee, and submitted to Mr, John Bright, and Mr. Richard Cobden, and other members of Parliament for approval. They approved of it, but said that the protest had better not be issued under ]:>resent circumstances. A pamphlet was written showing the law in the case, and the violation of law by the builders and by the owner of the Alabama, and a copy was sent to every member of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, to show them what we thought of it; and so in reference to othei' ships that have been building. We had a vigilance committee for corres pondence with the men of every sepai'ate port, to know what ships were being built, and for what purpose. We sent memorials to the Government again and again for the stopping of these two rebel rams — these tw(^ rams which my friend has called the rams of Nebaioth — and I believe the sympathies of the mass of the people are with the merchants of Liver- pool, who believe that such a precedent would be injurious to the commerce of the people of England, should England be at war with any other part of the world. Let me say, how- ever, that the men who make money by the building of these ships, may make money for a little while ; but we believe in our hearts, and in the sight of God, that their money will perish with them — that it is the reward of iniquity, and it will never be the means of building up their families. I come again to what I believe to be the state of feeling in America towards England. It is not a feeling of enmity — it 26 INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. is not the desire of the American people to be at war with England ; theirs is not the desire to take advantage of any little circumstance, to fan the flame of war, that is shown in newpapers — some of tliem in your own city — that have sub- served this most miserable end by their misrepresentations of the sentiments of England. I believe that the sentiment of the American people toward England tends to show love, and general sympathy and good will. These misrepresentations of the press have done much mischief; but the feeling of Ameri- cans towards England is of sorrow more than anger — a feeling ready to be healed by a. knowledge of the truth. I believe that there is no fear of war amongst the majority of the people in England and in America. 1 believe that they will do all they can to prevent a war, and establish a right understanding as to one another's position and feelings. I believe the mission in which it has been God's great favor to employ me, will be the means of enabling multitudes to realize exactly what is the state of things in this country. Let me just say that my friend — I believe I may call him so, though I sincerely reverence him — the lie v. Dr. Bacon of New Haven, put the matter in a form which, I think, was true to the letter, and illustrated the subject in a very efficient manner. "I be- lieve," he said, " that the English Government has long ago recognized the independence of x\merica as a nation, but I do not think the English i)eople have ever yet recognized the independence of Americans. They have a feeling that an elder brother has towards a young brother that would be dis- posed to claim his own perhaps too soon, and to do so without consulting his elder brother's leave, or his elder brother's con- venience." John Bull is your eldei' brotlier, and very much disposed to give you a slap if you do anything that is contrary to his humor. But if anybody else would slap you, he would stand by you as a brother in the time of conflict, and no better brothers would there be than the Americans and the English, when they know one anothei' perfectly well. [Ap- plause.] I fear to trespass longer upon your time. I rejoice in the INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. 27 privilege that I liave had to address so many. I believe that the Christianity of America is of a sound and enlightened kind, and especially enlightened in relation to the claims of government — especially enlightened as to the present aspect of their own circumstances. I believe that for three years you have been passing through a schooling process; I believe that you have made rapid progress, and can give an accoiuit of yourselves most clearly at any time. Providence has been leading you by a way that you knew not; has been overrul- ing the most untoward events for the accomplishment of eveiy good object; has been doing more by the protraction of your warfare, than if He had not so prolonged it ; has been pre- paring you for the great issue that is to come in the abolition of slavery, and in the consolidation of this republic as a healthful and united governmeut. I believe that it is, through your Christianity, destined to be yet more cons])icuous, more powerful and brave, and that, when the Messiah gathers all nations under his wings, you will be found among them one of the highest. May God bless you. Amen. The President. — The intense interest which has detained this vast audience so long, will, I am sure, make them remain a little longer to listen to a few remarks by the Rev. Dr. 'S'hompson, pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle Church. We shall then close with a very brief devotional exei'cise, and it would be a favor if this vast assemblage will remain till the end. SPEECH OF REV. JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, D. D. Our literary consul at Liverpool a few years back — Mr. Nathaniel Hawthorne — in his very entertaining reminiscences of consular experience at that port, tells us that along with all that was genial and attractive in English society, he was every now and then conscious of some acrid quality in the moral atmosphere of England, that put him at once upon his national antagonism. To counteract this in part, he kept in 28 INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. the dingy back office of the Consulate " a fierce and terrible bust of Gen. Andrew Jackson, tliat frowned forth itninitigably at any Englishman who might happen to enter." But he pre sently discovered that this expedient was of no avail ; fo^" younger Englishmen had never heard of the battle of New Orleans, and older Englishmen somehow seemed to confound it with a British victory. Our worthy friend has shown to- night that, ill this respect, he is a true representative of the elderly Englishman. At the sajue time Mr. Hawthorne says, with a manly honesty, "I seUlom came into personal relations with an Eng- li-shman without beginning to like him, and feeling my favor- able impression wax stronger with the progress of the ac- quaintance." Aud he adds, "I never stood in an English crowd without being conscious of hereditary sympathies." I tliink you will all agree with me, that when we first met this honored and beloved brother — this father in the miuistry — when we first met him in this house — there sprang up in oiir hearts a liking to him and to his cause ; and that favor- able impression has grown, not upon us only, but in all the land, witli tlie progress of a personal acquaintance with Dr. Massie, or with his colleague. And now, to-night, as he has spoken to us his words of wisdom, his words of encouragement, his w^ords of hope, we have felt that hereditary sympathies were beating in our hearts — sympathies of a common blood, a common ancestr}^ a common language, a common history, a common inheritance in the great principles of civil and re- ligious freedom, that his sires and ours together defended in the field and at tlie stake. But nearer and warmer than these hereditarj^ sympathies are the religious sympathies that bind us, through a common faith in Christ and his salvation, and a common love and hope for mankind, who are to be made partakers of the Gospel by the joint agency of England and the United States. Did not our hearts burn within us, as we listened to these words of love and cheer from the representative of so nuiny hundred names in the ministry of the gospel in Great Britain? INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. 29 My Friends, let us rise to the gravity of tlie occasion. Let us have done even with that pleasant bantering of national pride and prowess, in which we have indulged this evening. It may lead too far. The spirit of boasting is unworthy of us; and to challenge a war with England is to play with a two-edged sword. Eno^land knows well enough that we will light to the end for national honor or right, when the neces- sity is laid upon us. But let us stand only for the Kight; — resolved that we will not be driven into war, nor provoked nor cajoled into a war with England, for anything but the right. And let us study the things that make for peace. Wo worth the day when peace shall be broken between these kindred nations ! ISTever since Christianity dawned, has the world seen a day so dark and disastrous as that would be, when these two nations, foremost in Christian civilization, leaders of the commerce, the missions, the freedom of the world, should go to war with the intense energy of their common nature, and with their vast improvements in military science. Civilization would go back full Hfty years. We dare not trifle with such a possibility. Christian men must do all in honor to avert it. Our brother will go back to England, charged with the true American sentiment on this subject. We have not with- held from him our grievances concerning England. We have no need to repeat them now. He understands them well, and with right English honesty he will report them, depend upon it, in every address that he shall make at home. He has rightly divined the principles and the bearings of our cause, and he has faithfully gathered up our judgments and our purposes in the war. Yet, were I to express, in a few words, the message that we would have him bear, I would say to him : — Go tell the England of Shakspeake, that in this land which claims with her a heritage in that language which he has crystallized into immortality — that in this English-speaking land, among all its Christian people, there is none " so vile that would not love his country'' — none "so base that would be a bondman" 80 INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. to the slaveocracj of the South. [Applause.] Gro tell the England of John Milton, that in this land to-day a million bayonets maintain that good old cause for which he wrote and labored till sight was gone, and for which he still suffered and prayed in blindness, and penury, and age. Go tell the England of John Hampden, that a nation is marshaled here to-day under the banner by which he faced the mortal strife of Clialgrove field — his own banner with his own motto: "No Step Backwaed " in the march or in the fight for freedom and the i-ights of man. Go tell the England of Algernon Sidney, that that constitutional liberty which was the one long aspiration of his life, and for which he laid down his gray head upon the block, finds here its expression in the govern- ment which this great people are sworn to maintain, by the lives of their sons and their own. Go tell the England of the Puritans, that that religious liberty for which they were will- ing to forego pulpits and churches and homes, for which they entered into prison singing God's praise, for which they went undaunted to the stake — that religious liberty is here main- tained by a nation of their sons in arms, and will be to the end. Yes, and we may now say to him, without one reserva- tion : Go tell the England of Wilberforce and Clarkson, that the cause of the slave — for which they in their time en- dured public proscription and social obloquy — is now main- tained in this land by the sword in the hands of a willing people. Go tell that England which has sent forth her Careys, her Mar- tyns, and her Morrisons, that we are one with her in the work of planting all this wide world with missions of the Gospel. And I am sure that I do but gather up the sentiments of this vast audience when I say to our brother: Go tell the England of Victoria — whose name shall be as resplendent in history for the virtues of her reign, as is the name of Elizabeth for the genius of hers — go tell the England of Victoria, that Americans who love and prize their own republican govern- ment before all others, and who will maintain it to the last against all comers, know how to respect that honorable and virtuous Queen, and how to respect the sentiment of loyal INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES. 31 Englishnien for such a sovereign : "Give the queen thy judg- ments, O God, and thy righteousness to the queen's son. In her days let the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth." Carry back these greetings to tlie land of our hereditary sympathies, and say, especially to the Christian people of England, that we will ever stand by them for Justice, for Truth, for Humanity. We will bear with their mistakes and affgravations as we ask them to bear with our infirmities ; we will cultivate the spirit and the methods of international good-will ; and when the blessed days of peace in righteous- ness shall come, we will join our ships with theirs, not in fierce contest on the sea, but in bearing the message of good- will and peace to all the world, spreading abroad that One Name for which we live and in which we would die. " And blessed be His glorious name for ever, and let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen." And now, my honored brother, let me give you, in the name of this vast assemblage, this hand of farewell. "The Lord bless thee and keep thee ; the Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee ; the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." At the close of Dr. Thompson's address, prayer was olFered by Dr. Smith. The hymn "Blest be the tie that binds'" was then sung ; the benediction pronounced by the Rev. Dr. Massie, and the audience dispersed — the organ playing the grand Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. J^ LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 4