ion of slavery
since the time of its first inception under Clarkson and Wilberforce,
though now lying very low on a sick bed. Of course we all expressed our
willingness to stop, and the carriage was soon driving up the gravelled
walk towards the house. We were ushered into a comfortable sitting room,
which looked out on beautiful grounds, where the velvet grass, tall,
dark trees, and a certain quaint air of antiquity in disposition and
arrangement, gave me a singular kind of pleasure; the more so, that it
came to me like a dream; that the house and the people were unknown to
me, and the whole affair entirely unexpected.

I was soon shown into a neat chamber, where an aged woman was lying in
bed. I was very much struck and impressed by her manner of receiving me.
With deep emotion and tears, she spoke of the solemnity and sacredness
of the cause which had for years lain near her heart. There seemed to be
something almost prophetic in the solemn strain of assurance with which
she spoke of the final extinction of slavery throughout the world.

I felt both pleased and sorrowful. I felt sorrowful because I knew, if
all true Christians in America had the same feelings, that men, women,
and children, for whom Christ died, would no more be sold in my country
on the auction block.

There have been those in America who have felt and prayed thus nobly and
sincerely for the heathen in Burmah and Hindostan, and that sentiment
was a beautiful and an ennobling one; but, alas! the number has been few
who have felt and prayed for the heathenism, and shame of our own
country; for the heathenism which sells the very members of the body of
Christ as merchandise.

When we were again on the road, we were talking on the change of times
in England since railroads began; and Mr. S. gave an amusing description
of how the old lords used to travel in state, with their coaches and
horses, when they went up once a year on a solemn pilgrimage to London,
with postilions and outriders, and all the country gaping and wondering
after them.

"I wonder," said one of us, "if Shakspeare were living, what he would
say to our times, and what he would think of all the questions that are
agitating the world now." That he did have thoughts whose roots ran far
beyond the depth of the age in which he lived, is plain enough from
numberless indications in his plays; but whether he would have taken any
practical interest in the world's movements is a fair questio