THE TEMPERANCE FETE AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume X, Issue 2788, 4 January 1873, Page 3

THE TEMPERANCE FETE AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE.

TTptvabds 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, many thousands of persons 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 wae The Rev. Theodobe L. Cuyeeb, who spoke as follows : Two acres cf Englishmen! (Laughter.) Whom did you leave at home to-day to lake 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 amallest in dimensions, and so I feei encouraged. In fact little Britain to-day is doing the largest part in ruling and controlling the moral sentiments of the filobe. 1 rejoice to have come and seen you to-day. This is the last object on which my eye shall rest before X leave your imperial city of Loudon to set off this afternoon for a return journey to the United States—thank God, United States, since wo shovelled slavery under—(cheers) —as you ought to shovel under the liquor-traffic. (Loud cheers.) Now we are united, and lam going back to America as fast as steam can carry me, and when I 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 teil them tout since (.hat Jittle cloud, no larger than a man's haml, that rose out of the hold of the Alabama has been scattered out of the sky, there is a clear sky, and unbroken pence, 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 hns 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 cottage ; I have looked at her from her noble Queen —God bless her ! —(Cheers)— toherhuinblest subject. She is not ourQueeninAmerica,but3heis more to us than a Queen —she is a good, pure, warmhearted, loviug woman, wife, and mother. (Cheers.) To us the woman is even more than tho 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— (c-heers) —for from the top of my head to my heels I am a thoroughgoing 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 Lnto the streets the poor humble people, whfcm i followed me to thecab, and squeezed ny'iiind, and sent their " goodbyes," and '*\(J-od bless you's" after me. I care more for them than I should have cared for the enamelled cards and complimonts 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 shallburn steadily up ; und let me tell you that the working people, knowing the miseries and the 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 aspecfs, and I have come to the conclusion which I shall now briefly state. 1 have seen the glory of England, my eyes have beheld and feasted on the exquisite beauty of your landscapes. I have looked at your ancient castles, and stood under the arches of your Westminster Abbey and Gloucester Cathedral. I have beheld the science, the art, the marvellous commercial energy and industry of Britain, this little beehive that eends 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 eeen her shame. The shame of England—you know what that is, and I know it too. The shame of England ia this, that right in the face of nineteen centuries of civilisation and Christianity, looms up thie horrid unendurable monster alcohol. The other day, in the Houee 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 America —that he would rather see England free than see England sober. (" Shame.") He might as well have said that he would rather sen daylight than see the sun, for as there is do daylight without the sun bo there is no freedom, for Britain -without sobriety. (Cheers.) Bfe wants to see England free —God bless the old dear isle! —so do you and I; but England can only be free when sho has glain her most tremendous foe, and when

«he rises superior to appetite, avarice, and fashion, and becomes, from John o' G-roat'e 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. Wβ are nothing but ono people, and all that separates ns is a little cold water. (Laughter.) And we, too, have the slavery of the drinking usages. Who makes that slavery? who perpetnates it? Erery man who puta the bottle on his table or raises it to his lips. Ah I that is a sorrowful eight that I have eeen—four-fifths of all the tables at which I have heen treated with old-faahioned British hospitality harebeen darkened, and in my honest judgment cursed, with the wine decanter. That is the one plague spot of your kingdom; that is the one sad and sorrowful sight I have to carry back with me. How shall you seek toehange 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 TemperanceLeague ie doing.—Referring to the Good Templars and tions of Temperance, Mr. Cuvler aaid these orders were not " secret," but only private, in the sense that every well--ordered family had its own private affairs when it was about its own private business. What they wanted wns to get the Christian conscience of Britain to feel thoroughly against the bottle. He did not care whether a man was High Oliun-h or Low Church, so that he never got so hij;. : i us to disregard this matter. Talking of High nnd Low Church reminded him of an Episcopal brother who had a floating chapel in 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 Higli Church or Low Church ?" Said he, "Thai, depends juat on the state of the tide." (3-od had committed to Britain and America this grandest moral reform of the age. If tliey advanced side by side and ehoulder to shoulder, victory must and would, by-and-bye, perch upon their banners.