THE TEMPERANCE FETE AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE.

Evening Star, Issue 3103, 29 January 1873, Page 2

THE TEMPERANCE FETE AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE.

Upwards of 62,000 people were present at the fete of the National Temperance League held in London. Almost every county of the kingdom was represented, maily thousands of persona having journeyed by the early special trains, A great Meeting was held, under the presidency of Mr Samuel Bowly, President of the League. The first speaker was The Rev. Theodore L. Cnyler, wfyo spoke as follows Two acres of Englishmen ! ( Laughter) Whom did you leave at home to-day to tqke care of the house ?' Whoever you have left let me tell you that America sends greeting to Great Britain, through one of her teetotallers. (Cheers.) They send a very small man, but I have found, since I came to Europe, that the most important and powerful country within that comprehensive name is one of the smallest in dimensions, so I feel encouraged. In fact, little Britain to-day is doing the largest part in ruling and controlling the moral sentiments of the globe. I rejoice to have come and seen you to-day. This is the last object on which my eye shall rest before I leave your imperial city of London to set off this afternoon for a return journey to the United States —thank God, United States, since we shovelled slavery under—(cheers)—as you ought to shovel under the liquor traffic. (Loud cheers.) Now we are united, and I am going back to America as fast as steam can carry me, and when 1 get there I shall say the last grand object on which my eye rested was several acres of living teetotallers from all parts of Great Britain. (Cheers ) lam going to take back your greeting to them, and te|l them that since that little cloud, no larger than a man’s hand, that rose out of the hold of the Alabama, has been scattered out of the sky, there is a clear sky, and unbroken peace, and hearty brotherhood between old mother England and her daughter America. Thank God, peace reigns, and though when I came over there was the threatening of conflict, I told some of you in Exeter Hall that war would not come, and could not come, and thank God it has not come, and I go back with a light heart, and with gratitude to God that in this last interview we can clasp hands and rejoice over a new triumph of international brotherhood and-Christian peace, (Cheers.) I have been looking at England for two months honestly and fairly, I have seen her from the palace to the peasant’s oottage; 1 have looked at her from her noble Queen — God bless her !—(Cheers) —to her humblest subject. She is not our Queen in America, but she is more to us than a Queen—‘she is a good, pure, warmhearted, loving woman, wife, and mother. (Cheers.) To us the woman is even more than the sovereign. I have seen Britain from her Queen and Princes, and through the various strata of society, all the way to those in the very humblest position of life. I have had a chance to feel England’s pulse; I have had a chance to sit at the table of her Premier; to stand in her Parliament Hall, and had invitations to sit at the table of many of your most eminent men in Church and State ; but nothing has delighted me more than to get right next the ear and heart of the great solid mass of Britain’s working people —(cheers)—for from the top of my head to pay heels I am a thorough-going republican, and a believer in popular rights. Therefore I have sought to meet the masses of England; and last night, when I left the chapel of my beloved Christian brother and fellow-teetotaller, Newman Hall—when I went into the streets poor , humble people whom I had addressed, followed me to the cab, and squeezed my hand, and sent their ‘’good-byes” and “God bless you’* ” mI we more for them

I should have cared for the enamelled cards and compliments of the owner of the loftiest castle in the land I tell you, working people, you are forty leagues ahead of the aristocracy on this matter. This is just one of those reforms that has got to be kindled by a fire that shall burn steadily up ; and let me tell you that the working people, knowing the miseries and horrors of drunkenness—they, with the middle-classes, are beginning this work, and the conscientious classes are beginning this work, and it is bound to go on and spread till it reaches the very loftiest sphere of British society. I have been looking at this question in all its aspects, and I have come to the conclusion which I shall now briefly stale. I have seen the glory of England, and my eyes have beheld and feasted on the exquisite beauty of your landscapes. I have looked at your ancient castles, and stood un ler the arches of your Westminster Abbey and Gloucester Cathedral. I have beheld the science, the art, the marvellous commer ial energy and industry of Britain, this little beehive that sends out its influence over Europe and the world ; for if you want to get the financial centre of the world you must stand at twelve o’clock noon right between the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England. London is the centre of the civilised world—we all admit that. I have indeed seen the glory of England, but I have also seen her shame. The shame of England—you know what that is, and I know it tBo. The shame of England is this, that right in tfie face of nineteen centuries of civilisation axd Christianity, looms up this horrid, unendurable monster alcohol. The other day, in the House of Lords, a very eloquent bishop, who sits on a bench along which I should like to carry a total abstinence pledge, gave utterance to a memorable saying which was overheard even in Ameriaa—that he would rather see England free than see England sober. { ‘Shame.”) He might as well have said that he would rather see daylight than see the sun, for as there is no daylight without the sun so there is no freedom for Britain without sobriety. (Cheers.) He wants to see England free God bless the (tear old ial© !so do you and I ; \>ut England can only be free when she has slain her most tremendous foe, and when she rises superior to appetite, avarice, and fashion, and becomes, from John o’ Groat’s House to Land's End, a great total-abstaining nation. (Cheers.) You are free, so far as your institutions are concerned, just as free as we are in America, for the fact is that English law is American law. We are nothing but one people, and all that separates us is a little cold water, (laughter.) And we, too, have the slavery of the drinking usages. Who makes that slavery ? who perpetrates it ? Kvery man who puts the bottle on his table or raises it to his lips. Ah J that is a sorrowful sight that 1 have seen : Four-fifths of all the tables at which I have been treated with old-fashioned British hospitality have been darkened, and, in my honest judgment, cursed with the wine decanter. That is the one p ague-spot of your kingdom ; that is the one sad and sorrowful sight 1 have to carry back with me. How shall you seek to change it ? By law. Who will give you the law ? The people. How will you get the people to give you the law? By just such work as this, and just such gatherings as these, and just such work as this National Temperance League is doing. - Referring to the Good Templars and Sons of Temperance, Mr Cuyler said these orders were not “ secret,” but only private, in the sense that every wellordered family had its own private 'affairs when it was about its own private business. What they wanted was to get the Christian conscience of Britain to feel thoroughly against the bottle. He did not care whether a man was High Church or Low Church, so that he never got go high 43 tc> disre|garc| th'Sj matter. Tilling of High and Low Church reminded him of an Episcopal brother who had a floating chapel iu New York, moored by the water side, and on board this the sailors came and heard the Gospel, Somebody said to him, “ Brother, you are an Episcopal clergyman, are you High Oh arch or Low Church ?” Said he, “ That depends just on the state of the tide.” God had committed to Britain and America this grandest moral reform of the age. If they advanced side by side and shoulder to shoulder, victory must and would, by-and-bye, perch upon their banners.