old anti-slavery orator, George Thompson, in the number of meetings
attended and addresses made. In less than a month he had spoken
twenty-one times and often in places where opposition was in evidence.
Everywhere Thompson found an aroused and encouraged anti-slavery
feeling, now strongly for the North[952].

Eight years earlier five hundred thousand English women had united in an
address to America on behalf of the slaves. Harriet Beecher Stowe now
replied to this and asked the renewed sympathy of her English sisters. A
largely signed "round robin" letter assured her that English women were
still the foes of slavery and were indignantly united against
suggestions of British recognition of the South[953]. Working class
Britain was making its voice heard in support of the North. To those of
Manchester, Lincoln, on January 19, 1863, addressed a special letter of
thanks for their earnest support while undergoing personal hardships
resulting from the disruption of industry caused by the war. "I cannot"
he wrote, "but regard your decisive utterances upon the question [of
human slavery] as an instance of sublime Christian heroism which has not
been surpassed in any age or in any country[954]." Nonconformist England
now came vigorously to the support of the North. Spurgeon, in London,
made his great congregation pray with him: "God bless and strengthen
the North; give victory to their arms[955]." Further and more general
expression of Nonconformist church sympathy came as a result of a letter
received February 12, 1863, from a number of French pastors and laymen,
urging all the Evangelical churches to unite in an address to Lincoln.
The London and Manchester Emancipation Societies combined in drawing up
a document for signature by pastors and this was presented for adoption
at a meeting in Manchester on June 3, 1863. In final form it was "An
Address to Ministers and Pastors of All Christian Denominations
throughout the States of America." There was a "noisy opposition" but
the address was carried by a large majority and two representatives,
Massie and Roylance, were selected to bear the message in person to the
brethren across the ocean[956]. Discussion arose over the Biblical
sanction of slavery. In the _Times_ appeared an editorial pleading this
sanction and arguing the _duty_ of slaves to refuse liberty[957].
Goldwin Smith, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, replied in
a pamphlet, "Does the Bible sanction American