clutches.” [Cheers.] “They have preached heaven and helped turn earth into a hell.” [Great cheers.] “They stood by, without a murmur, and beheld mankind brought down to this awful condition; and now, in the midst of our unbearable calamities, they tell us it is well for us to starve; that starvation is the especial gate of heaven; and that Dives deserved hell because he had plenty to eat while on earth.” [Great cheering.] “And why do they do this?  Because, if they can get possession of our consciences and persuade us to starve to death patiently, and not resist, they will make it so much the easier for the oppressors to govern us; and the rich, in return, will maintain the churches.” [Sensation.] “They are throttling us in the name of God!” [Tremendous applause.] “Our sons march in endless procession to the prison and the scaffold; our daughters take their places in the long line of the bedizened cortege of the brothel; and every fiber of our poor frames and brains shrieks out its protest against insufficient nourishment; and this man comes to us and talks about his Old-World, worn-out creeds, which began in the brains of half-naked barbarians, and are a jumble of the myths of a hundred-----”

Here the speaker grew wild and hoarse with passion, and the audience, who had been growing more and more excited and turbulent as he proceeded, burst into a tremendous uproar that drowned every other sound.  A crowd of the more desperate—­dark-faced, savage-looking workingmen—­made a rush for the platform to seize the clergyman; and they would soon have had possession of him.  But in this extremity I sprang to the front of the platform, between him and the oncoming mob, and by my mere presence, and the respect they have for me as their friend, I stilled the tempest and restored order.

“My dear friends!” I said, “be patient!  Are you the men who boast of your toleration?  You meet to discuss your sufferings and their remedy; and when one tells you how he would cure you, you rise up to slay him.  Be just.  This poor man may be mistaken—­the body of which he is a member may be mistaken—­as to the best way to serve and save mankind; but that his purpose is good, and that he loves you, who can doubt?  Look at him!  Observe his poor garments; his emaciated figure.  What joys of life does he possess?  He has given up everything to help you.  Into your darkest alleys—­into your underground dens—­where pestilence and starvation contend for their victims, he goes at high noon and in the depth of the blackest night, and he brings to the parting soul consolation and hope.  And why not?  Who can doubt that there is another life?  Who that knows the immortality of matter, its absolute indestructibility, can believe that mind, intelligence, soul,—­which must be, at the lowest estimate—­if they are not something higher—­a form of matter,—­are to perish into nothingness?  If it be true, as we know it is, that the substance of the poor flesh that robes your spirits—­nay, of the very