After spending a year and a half in Europe, Mr. Coffin visited Greece, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, sailing thence down the Red sea to Bombay, travelled across India to the valley of the Ganges, before the completion of the railroad, visiting Allahabad, Benares, Calcutta, sailing thence to Singapore, Hong Kong, Canton, Shanghai.  Ascending the Yang-tse six hundred miles to Wuchang; the governor of the province invited him to a dinner.  From Shanghai he sailed to Japan, experiencing a fearful typhoon upon the passage.  Civil war in Japan prevented his travelling in that country, and he sailed for San Francisco, visiting points of interest in California, and in November made his way across the country seven hundred miles—­riding five consecutive days and nights between the terminus of the Central Pacific road at Wadsworth and Salt Lake, arriving in Boston, January, 1869, after an absence of two and a half years.  During that period the Boston Journal contained every week a letter from his pen.

For one who had seen so much there was an opening in the lecture field and for several years he was one of the popular lecturers before lyceums.  In 1869 he published Our New Way Round the World, followed by the Seat of Empire, Caleb Crinkle (a story) Boys of 76, Story of Liberty, Old Times in the Colonies, Building the Nation, Life of Garfield, besides a history of his native town.  His volumes have been received with marked favor.  No less than fifty copies of the Boys of ’76 are in the Boston Public Library and all in constant use.

Mr. Coffin has given many addresses before teacher’s associations, and a course of lectures before the Lowell Institute.  During the winter of 1878-9 a movement was made by the Western grangers to bring about a radical change in the patent laws.  Mr. Coffin appeared before the Committee of Congress and presented an address so convincing, that the Committee ordered its publication.  It has been frequently quoted upon the floor of Congress and highly commended by the present Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Lamar.  Mr. Coffin also appeared before the Committee on Labor, and made an argument on the “Forces of Nature as Affecting Society,” which won high encomiums from the committee, and which was ordered to be printed.  The honorary degree of A. M. was conferred upon Mr. Coffin in 1870, by Amherst College.  He is a member of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, and he gave the address upon the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of his native town.  He is a resident of Boston, and was a member of the Legislature for 1884, member of the Committee on Education, and reported the bill for free textbooks.  He was also member of the Committee on Civil Service, and was active in his efforts to secure the passage of the bill.  He is a member of the present Legislature, Chairman of the Committee on the Liquor Law, and of the special committee for a Metropolitan Police for the city of Boston.  Mr. Coffin’s pen is never idle.  He is giving his present time to a study of the late war, and is preparing a history of that mighty struggle for the preservation of the government of the people.