The assassination of Lovejoy was an imposing object lesson to the North, but it was not the last.  Other and terrible illustrations of the triumph of mobs followed it, notably the burning of Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia on the evening of May 17, 1838.  As the murder of Lovejoy formed the culmination of outrages directed against the rights of person, the burning of Pennsylvania Hall furnished the climax of outrages committed against the rights of property.  The friends of the slave and of free discussion in Philadelphia feeling the need of a place where they might assemble for the exercise of the right of free speech in a city which denied to them the use of its halls and meeting-houses, determined to erect for themselves such a place.  At a cost of forty thousand dollars they built Pennsylvania Hall and devoted it to “Free Discussion, Virtue, Liberty, and Independence.”

Two days after the dedicatory exercises were had the hall was occupied by the annual convention of American Anti-Slavery Women.  On the evening of May 16th, Garrison, Maria Weston Chapman, Angelina Grimke Weld and others addressed the convention in the new temple of freedom.  The scenes of that evening have been graphically described by the first speaker as follows:  “The floor of the hall was densely crowded with women, some of the noblest specimens of our race, a large proportion of whom were Quakers.  The side aisles and spacious galleries were as thickly filled with men.  Nearly three thousand people were in the hall.  There seemed to be no visible symptoms of a riot.  When I rose to speak I was greeted with applause by the immense assembly, and also several times in the course of my remarks.  As soon, however, as I had concluded my address, a furious mob broke into the hall, yelling and shouting as if the very fiends of the pit had suddenly broken loose.  The audience rose in some confusion, and would undoubtedly have been broken up, had it not been for the admirable self-possession of some individuals, particularly the women.  The mobocrats finding that they could not succeed in their purpose, retreated into the streets, and, surrounding the building, began to dash in the windows with stones and brick-bats.  It was under these appalling circumstances that Mrs. Chapman rose for the first time in her life, to address a promiscuous assembly of men and women—­and she acquitted herself nobly.  She spoke about ten minutes, and was succeeded by A.E.G.  Weld, who occupied nearly an hour.  As the tumult from without increased, and the brick-bats fell thick and fast (no one, however, being injured) her eloquence kindled, her eye flashed, and her cheeks glowed, as she devoutly thanked the Lord that the stupid repose of that city had at length been disturbed by the force of truth.  When she sat down, Esther Moore (a Friend) made a few remarks, then Lucretia Mott, and finally Abby Kelley, a noble young woman from Lynn.