ed in the cause which had brought them
together that day. The names of a few of those present will show how
various were the classes thus represented. The Lord Mayor (Alderman
Fowler, M.P.), and the Chief Magistrates of London, the Archbishop of
Canterbury and Cardinal Manning, Earl Granville and the Earl of Derby,
Sir Stafford Northcote and Mr. W. E. Forster, Mr. Sergeant Simon. Sir
Wilfrid Lawson, Mr. T. R. Potter, Mr. Henry Richard, and many other
leading members of Parliament, sat together on the same platform. There
were present a few of the veterans who had taken part in the
anti-slavery struggles fifty years before, such as Joseph Sturge and Sir
Harry Verney, M.P. Descendants of the early champions of the cause,
bearing the honoured names of Wilberforce, Lushington, Buxton, Pease,
Forster, showed that the spirit of their fathers was maintained in a new
generation. Among the ladies on the platform were the Baroness
Burdett-Coutts, Miss Gordon, the sister of General Gordon, of Khartoum,
and some members of the Society of Friends, always abounding in good
works.

The Secretary of the Society read a list of names of those unable to be
present, but expressing warm sympathy with the purpose of the meeting.
There were letters from the Chief Rabbi, from Lord Salisbury, the Duke
of Norfolk, the Duke of Sutherland, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Carnarvon,
and other men of distinction. The most touching communication was from
the venerated Earl of Shaftesbury, who had promised to attend, but was
obliged to dictate a letter from a sick-bed, in which he expressed the
satisfaction he felt in having lived to see such changes in regard to
slavery during the past fifty years. On the dais behind the platform
were busts of Granville Sharp, and of Clarkson, decorated with flowers,
and in front were exhibited massive wooden yokes and iron chains, such
as are used for the gangs of slaves in the journey to the coast of
Africa.

Well might Lord Granville express his delight on "looking at this
assembly of eminent men in all the walks of life in this country, of
different professions, of different pursuits, of different religious
denominations, of different political parties, all absorbed by one
philanthropic idea, and presided over by the illustrious Prince, the
Heir-Apparent to the Throne." How the Prince came to occupy this
position, it may interest many readers to know. Mr. Allen, the Secretary
of the Society, and Mr. W. E. Forster, wen