great feebleness and make an earnest
protest against the infamies exposed by Mr. Stead in London. In that
dying speech he called upon Parliament to defend the purity of the city.
As far back as 1840, his voice in Parliament rang out against the
oppression of factory workers, and he succeeded in securing better
legislation for them. He worked and contributed for the ragged schools
of England, by which over 200,000 poor children of London were redeemed.
He was President of Bible and Missionary Societies, and was for thirty
years President of the Young Men's Christian Association. I never
forgave Lord Macaulay for saying he hoped that the "praying of Exeter
Hall would soon come to an end." On his 80th birthday, a holiday was
declared in honour of Lord Shaftesbury, and vast multitudes kept it.
From the Lord Mayor himself to the girls of the Water Cress and Flower
Mission, all offered him their congratulations. Alfred Tennyson, the
Poet Laureate, wrote him, "Allow me to assure you in plain prose, how
cordially I join with those who honour the Earl of Shaftesbury as a
friend of the poor." And, how modest was the Earl's reply.

He said: "You have heard that which has been said in my honour. Let me
remark with the deepest sincerity--ascribe it not, I beseech you, to
cant and hypocrisy--that if these statements are partially true, it must
be because power has been given me from above. It was not in me to do
these things."

How constantly through my life have I heard the same testimony of the
power that answers prayer. I believed it, and I said it repeatedly, that
the reason American politics had become the most corrupt element of our
nation was because we had ignored the power of prayer. History
everywhere confesses its force. The Huguenots took possession of the
Carolinas in the name of God. William Penn settled Pennsylvania in the
name of God. The Pilgrim Fathers settled New England in the name of God.
Preceding the first gun of Bunker Hill, at the voice of prayer, all
heads uncovered. In the war of 1812 an officer came to General Andrew
Jackson and said, "There is an unusual noise in the camp; it ought to be
stopped." The General asked what this noise was. He was told it was the
voice of prayer.

"God forbid that prayer and praise should be an unusual noise in the
camp," said General Jackson. "You had better go and join them."

There was prayer at Valley Forge, at Monmouth, at Atlanta, at South
Mountain, at Gettysburg. Bu