TALMAGE IN DUBLIN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 26, Issue 349, 26 December 1879, Page 11

TALMAGE IN DUBLIN.

From the Dublin Church Bells,

Dr. De Witt Talmage, the Yankee lectuier, has come and gone, and left behind him an unsavory reputation. How such crowds could be collected together to listen to the garbage and disgusting vulgarity of tl is American baffles comprehension ! He is thus painted in the Lhibhn Freeman s Journal :

•A tall man, with a stiff, ungainly figure, a hoarse, harsh, monotonous voice, and a peculiarly ungraceful gesticulation He has a y,ay, which is not pleasant, of uttering the sentences he intends to be impressive in a long-drawn solemn drawl, and of waiting at the end oi a ' funny' story with an encouraging smile on his face as it were to give the audience 'a lead' at the laughter and applause. He bas, besides, a happy knack of enlivening his lectures with 'catch pbrases, such as Mr. Brough's 'That's the sort ot man lam 1 ' or Mr Toole s ' Still lam not happy.' Dr. Talmage's favourite phrase last evening was, 'He wasn't a gentleman- never will be— you cannot make them out of that stuff,' which lepeated at close intervals, m every variety of intonation, was found most effective in, provoking laughter."

Illustrating the "wickedness" of men, he told the followingHe was going down the road when he met a man with a fiddle He said to the man, " Do you know you are fiddle-faddling away yonr poul ? And the man replied, "Go to grass, yon old ppooriev'l " It was with such delectable anecdotes as this Dr. Talmage edifitd his audience in the Cbribtian Union Buildings, and taught them how to laugh.

How many Freemasons are there in ths world ? This is rather an interesting question, which a German paper called Inland has ?nSn t ktn v to a " S^' er contains eight grand lodges and 40,000 brethren : France has two grand lodges, with about 30,000 Masons; in the United Kingdom there are three grand lodges and 140.000 "workers ;" whilst in the United States we find as many as forty-six giand lodges, with over 580,000 members. Altogether there are eighty grand lodges in the world, having altogether 14 602 lodges under their jurisdiction, and 894,467 biethren. The Goloe expresses astonishment at the tone of hostility towards Kussia pervading the speech of Lord Sali^buiy at Manchester and says: "If the reported Anstro-Germau alliance prove a nahty Kussia must secure to herself allies to act in the rear of the enemy in case of an emergency. Lord Salisbury's speech not only opens Kussia b eyes, but gives her freedom of action "