he
earlier eccentricities of Spurgeon; every trick of stage effect--such as
the sudden display of a white slave-child--is freely employed in the
pulpit of Plymouth Church, and each successful "point" is rewarded by
audible murmurs of applause. One fact stamps the man very sufficiently.
In the latter part of last May, he was starting for a four-months'
absence in Europe; it was purely a pleasure trip, the expenses to be
paid by "his affectionate congregation;" and the whole arrangements were
thoroughly comfortable, not to say luxurious. The text of his last
sermon was taken from Acts, chapter xx. 18-27--words that even an
Apostle never spoke till, standing in the shadow of bonds and death, he
said farewell to saints who should never look upon his face any more.

Theodore Tilton, another shining light, much distinguished himself by
announcing that there was no doubt that "the negroes were destined to be
_The_ Church of Christ:" he founded his discovery not so much upon the
strong religious feeling prevalent among "colored" persons, as on that
verse in the Songs of Solomon, where the Bride professes herself "black
but comely."

It would be well if such absurdities were all one had to record: some
ebullitions of abolitionist zeal will hardly bear writing down. Take one
instance. At a large Union meeting at Philadelphia, the _Reverend_ A. H.
Gilbert, speaking of the Proclamation, and its probable effects in the
South, did not deny that it might entail a repetition of the San Domingo
horrors on a vaster scale. "But," said he--"speaking calmly and as a
Christian minister--I affirm that it would be better that every woman
and child in the South should perish, than that the principles of
Confederate Statesmen should prevail."

In all that huge assembly, there was not one man found who--for the love
of wife, or sister, or daughter, or mother--would rise to smite the
brutal blasphemer on the mouth; nay, the Quaker brood cheered him to the
echo.

That same Proclamation has done less harm than was expected, after all.
Maryland has suffered, perhaps, most: the whole Constitution is rendered
null and void there now, without her gaining any European credit as a
voluntary free State. The negroes stay or run away according to their
fancy, and work as it suits their convenience; the chances against
recapture being about 1000 to 1, so it says something for the system,
that so many have chosen to remain: hardly any household or domestic