our best and most
eloquent men, and to tender our aid and sympathy to the family--that
family in whose veins flows the blood of the martyr, Brown." In
closing, Mr. Rice, who had been heard with repeated applause, read the
following list of officers:

PRESIDENT: Dea. Ichabod Washburn; VICE-PRESIDENTS: Hon. John
Milton Earle, Hon. Peter C. Bacon, Hon. George F. Hoar, Hon.
W.W. Rice, Hon. Lemuel Williams, Albert Tolman, William T.
Merrifield, George M. Rice, Hon. Austin L. Rogers, Edward
Earle, John D. Baldwin, George W. Russell, Abram Firth, Joseph
P. Hale, Dr. S. Rogers, William R. Hooper, Benjamin Goddard,
Joseph Pratt, Harrison Bliss, Thomas Tucker, Rev. Horace
James, Rev. Merrill Richardson, Rev. Ebenezer Cutler, Rev.
R.R. Shippen, Rev. J.H. Twombly, Rev. George Allen, Rev. T.W.
Higginson, Rev. Peter Ross, Rev. William H. Sanford, Rev.
Samuel Souther, Dr. Joseph Sargent, Dr. William Workman, Dr.
O. Martin, Dr. T.H. Gage, Marcus Barrett, Warren Williams,
Thomas L. Nelson, Hartley Williams, Edwin Draper, S.A. Porter,
Jonathan Day; SECRETARIES: Charles E. Stevens, D.A. Goddard,
Joseph H. Walker.

Deacon Washburn, in taking the chair, called on the Rev. Mr.
Richardson to open the further exercises with prayer, after which he
read the following letter inclosing twenty dollars:

WORCESTER, DEC. 2, 1859.

Dear Sir: I shall not be able to unite with you as I had hoped
and expected, in your meeting of sympathy and charity. The
noble and heroic old man who loved the cause that we love, and
who has been faithful unto death to the principles as he
understood them, of the religion which we profess, has
bequeathed to the friends of liberty the charge of comforting
the desolate old age of his widow, and providing for the
education of his fatherless children. The charge is too sacred
to be declined.

Permit me to enclose, which would be of more value than
anything I could say at present, a slight contribution toward
this object.

Yours respectfully, G.F. HOAR.

The speeches that followed were of a particularly eloquent nature. Why
should this be otherwise? Never had men a grander theme nor more
sympathetic listeners. The Rev. Mr. Shippen, among other glowing
passages, said: "John Brown felt as Cromwell felt that he was
commissioned by God to