party and sect, the practical
teacher of the broadest toleration of individual opinion, it has had
more to do with the steady melioration of the prejudices growing out of
denominational interests in Church and State than any other agency
whatever. The platform of the lecture-hall has been common ground for
the representatives of all our social, political, and religious
organizations. It is there that orthodox and heterodox, progressive and
conservative, have won respect for themselves and toleration for their
opinions by the demonstration of their own manhood, and the recognition
of the common human brotherhood; for one has only to prove himself a
true man, and to show a universal sympathy with men, to secure popular
toleration for any opinion he may hold. Hardly a decade has passed away
since, in nearly every Northern State, men suffered social depreciation
in consequence of their political and religious opinions. Party and
sectarian names have been freely used as reproachful and even as
disgraceful epithets. To call a man by the name which he had chosen as
the representative of his political or religious opinions was considered
equivalent to calling him a knave or a fool; and if it happened that he
was in the minority, his name alone was regarded as the stamp of social
degradation. Now, thanks to the influence of the popular lecture mainly,
men have made, and are rapidly making, room for each other. A man may be
in the minority now without consequently being in personal disgrace. Men
of liberal and even latitudinarian views are generously received in
orthodox communities, and those of orthodox faith are gladly welcomed by
men who subscribe to a shorter creed and bear a broader charter of life
and liberty. There certainly has never been a time in the history of
America when there was such generous and general toleration of all men
and all opinions as now; and as the popular lecture has been universal,
with a determined aim and a manifest influence toward this end, it is
but fair to claim for it a prominent agency in the result.

Another good which may be counted among the fruits of the popular
lecture is the education of the public taste in intellectual amusements.
The end which the lecture-goer seeks is not always improvement, in any
respect. Multitudes of men and women have attended the lecture to be
interested, and to be interested intellectually is to be intellectually
amused. Lecturers who have appealed simply to