lowers
from the Queen was laid on the coffin. Many a tear was shed on that sad
day beside the tomb in which the Church of England laid her most
fearless and yet her best beloved son. I never have visited the Abbey
since, without halting for a few moments beside the chapel in which the
Dean and his beloved wife are slumbering. Greater than all his books or
literary achievements was Arthur Penryn Stanley, the modest,
true-hearted, unselfish, childlike, Christian man.

Soon after I had begun my pastorate in New York, I became a member of
the Young Men's Christian Association, which was one of the first that
was organized in this country. Since that time I have delivered more
than one hundred addresses, in behalf of this institution, in my own
country and abroad. In June, 1857, the New York organization honored me
with what was then a novelty in America--a public breakfast, and
commissioned me as a delegate to the original parent association in
London. I there met that remarkable Christian merchant, Mr. George
Williams, who was the founder of the Association, and who had got much
of his first spiritual inspiration from reading the writings of our
American, Charles G. Finney. He is now Sir George Williams, my much
loved friend, and I do not hesitate to say that there is not another man
living who has accomplished such a world-wide work for the glory of God
and the welfare of young men. The President of that first organized
London Association was the celebrated philanthropist, the Earl of
Shaftesbury, a man whom I had long desired to meet. My acquaintance with
him began in Exeter Hall, at a Sabbath service held to reach the
non-church going classes. With one or two others we knelt together in a
small side room to invoke a blessing on the service in the great hall,
and he prayed most fervently. The Earl of Shaftesbury was not only the
author of great reformatory legislation in Parliament, and the
acknowledged leader of the Low Church Party in the Established Church.
He was also a leader of city missions, ragged schools, shoe-black
brigades, and other organizations to benefit the submerged classes in
London. He once invited all the thieves in London to meet him privately
in a certain hall, and there pleaded with them to abandon their wretched
occupation, and promised to aid those who desired to reform. He was fond
of telling the story of how, when his watch was stolen, the thieves
themselves compelled the rascal to come and ret