a most favorable time and at the point
most accessible to the great body of the active friends of Peace, I
presume the attendance was larger than ever before.

Two thoughts were suggested to me by the character and proceedings of
this assemblage--first, that of the eminently popular and plebeian
origin and impulse of all the great Reform Movements of our age. Every
great public assemblage in Europe for any other purpose will be sure to
number Lords, Dukes, Generals, Princes, among its dignitaries; but none
such came near the Peace Congress; very few of them take part in any
movement of the kind. In the list of Delegates to this Congress, under
the head of "Profession or Trade," you find "Merchant," "Miller,"
"Teacher," "Tanner," "Editor," "Author," "Bookseller," "Jeweller," &c.,
very rarely "Gentleman," or "Baronet," and never a higher title, I
rejoice to say that "Minister" or "Clergyman" appears pretty often, but
never such a word as "Bishop" or "Archbishop," though the most liberal
of the Established Hierarchy, Archbishop Whateley of Dublin, sent a
brief note expressing sympathy with the objects of the meeting. And I
think among the clergymen present there was hardly one belonging to
either of the two Churches which in these realms claim a special and
exclusive patent from Heaven for the dispensation of Religious Truth.

The other thought suggested by this mighty gathering concerns the
character and efficacy of the organizations and sects in which
Christianity is presumed to be embodied. Let a Convention be called of
the Friends of Peace, of Temperance, of Personal Liberty, of the
Sacredness of Human Life, or any other tangible and positive idea, and
many hundreds will come together from distant nations, speaking diverse
languages, and holding antagonist opinions on other important subjects,
and will for days discuss and deliberate in perfect harmony, unite in
appropriate and forcible declarations of their common sentiments and in
the adoption of measures calculated to ensure their triumph. But let a
general Convention of the followers of Jesus Christ be called, with a
view to the speedy Christianization of the world, and either
three-fourths would keep away or the whole time of the meeting be wasted
in an acrimonious quarrel as to the meaning of Christianity or the
wording of the Shibboleth whereby those who were should be distinguished
from those who were not entitled to bear the Christian name.

This contrast im