L. S. C. with
recognition services, Round Tables, camp fires, the four Arches, and all
the accessories. Lakeside drew around it helpers and liberal givers,
and still stands in strength. Lakeside has the benefit of a delightful
location, on a wooded peninsula jutting into Lake Erie, near Sandusky
City, and in sight of Put-in-Bay, famous in American history for
Commodore Perry's naval victory in the War of 1812. It still maintains
lecture courses and classes in the midst of a summer-home community.

Another Assembly began in 1877, with high expectations, at Lake Bluff
overlooking Lake Michigan, thirty-five miles north of Chicago. It was
confidently supposed that on a direct railroad line from the great city,
Lake Bluff would draw large audiences, and Dr. Vincent was engaged to
organize and conduct an Assembly upon the Chautauqua plan, with
lecturers and workers from that headquarters. A strong program was
prepared for the opening session. Among the lecturers was the Rev.
Joseph Cook, at that time one of the most prominent and popular speakers
in the land. I recall in one of his lectures at Lake Bluff a sentence,
wholly unpremeditated, which thrilled the audience and has always seemed
to me one of the most eloquent utterances I have ever heard. It was
twelve years after the Civil War, and on our way to the Assembly we
passed the marble monument crowned with the statue of Stephen A.
Douglas, the competitor of Lincoln for the Senatorship and Presidency,
but after the opening of the war his loyal supporter for the few months
before his death. Dr. Cook was giving a history of the forces in the
nation which brought on the secession of the Southern States. He
referred to Daniel Webster in the highest praise, declaring that his
compromise measures, such as the Fugitive Slave Law, were dictated by a
supreme love for the Union, which if preserved would in time have made
an end of slavery, and he added a sentence of which this is the
substance.

Had it been given to Daniel Webster, as it was
given to Edward Everett, to live until the guns
were fired upon Fort Sumter, there would have been
an end of compromise. He would have stamped that
mighty foot with a sound that would have rung
throughout the land, have called forth a million
men, and might have averted the war!

Just then a voice rang out from one of the seats--"As Douglas did!"
Joseph Cook paused a momen