William Tweedie and his successor the late Mr.
Robert Rae, the efficient Secretaries of the National Temperance League
(of which Archbishop Temple has long been the President). They rendered
me endless acts of kindness, and at their anniversary meetings I met
many of the most prominent advocates of the temperance reform in Great
Britain. It gives me a sharp pang to recall the fact that of all the
leaders whom I met at those meetings, the gallant Sir Wilfred Lawson and
Mr. Caine are almost the only survivors.

Returning now to the scenes of our happy home life I should be
criminally neglectful if I failed to give even a brief account of the
gratifying incidents connected with the recent commemoration of my
eightieth birthday. Reluctant as I was to quit the _good Society of the
Seventies_, the transition into four-score was lubricated by so many
loving kindnesses that I scarcely felt a jolt or a jar. During the whole
month of January a steady shower of congratulatory letters poured in
from all parts of the land and from beyond sea, so that I was made to
realize the poet Wordsworth's modest confession:

"I've heard of hearts unkind kind deeds
With coldness still returning,
Alas, the gratitude of men
Has oftener left me mourning."

In anticipation of the event Mrs. Houghton, the editor of the _New York
Evangelist_, to which I have been so long a contributor, issued a
"Birthday Number" containing the most kindly expressions from
representatives of different Christian denominations, and officers of
various benevolent societies, and from representative men in secular
affairs, like Mr. Andrew Carnegie, Mr. Jesup, General Woodford, the Hon.
Mr. Coombs, Dr. St. Clair McKelway, and others. On the afternoon of
January 9th, the National Temperance Society honored me with a reception
at their Publication House in New York, which was attended by many
eminent citizens and clergymen, and "honorable women not a few." Letters
and telegrams from many quarters were read and an eloquent address was
pronounced by Mr. Joshua L. Bailey, the President of the Society. The
evening of my birthday, the 10th of January, was spent in our own
home, which was in full bloom with an immense profusion of flowers, and
enriched with beautiful gifts from many generous hearts. For three hours
it was the "joy unfeigned" of my family and myself to grasp again the
warm hands of our faithful Lafayette Avenue flock, and of my Brooklyn
neighbors