As the season of the May Meetings draws near, one naturally thinks of Exeter Hall and its interesting associations. When I first came to London it had not long been open, and it was a wonder to the young man from the country to see its capacious interior and its immense platform crowded in every part. It had a much less gorgeous interior than now, but its capacities for stowing away a large audience still remains the same; and then, as now, it was available alike for Churchmen and Dissenters to plead the claims of the great religious societies, but it seems to me that the audiences were larger and more enthusiastic at that early date, though I know not that the oratory was better. Bishops on the platform were rare, and the principal performer in that line was Bishop Stanley, of Norwich, a grotesque-looking little man, but not so famous as his distinguished son, the Dean of Westminster. Leading Evangelical ministers from the country—such as James, of Birmingham, who had a very pathetic voice, and Hugh McNeile, of Liverpool, an Irishman, with all an Irishman’s exuberance of gesture and of language—were a great feature. At times the crowds were so great that a meeting had to be improvised in the Lower Hall, then a much darker hall than it is now, but which, at any rate, answered its end for the time being. The missionary meetings were the chief attraction. Proceedings commenced early, and were protracted far into the afternoon; but the audience remained to the last, the ladies knitting assiduously all the while the report was being read, and only leaving off to listen when the speaking began. Perhaps the most crowded meeting ever held there—at any rate, in my time—was when Prince Albert took the chair to inaugurate Sir Fowell Buxton’s grand, but unfortunate, scheme for the opening up of the Congo. He spoke in a low tone, and with a somewhat foreign accent. Bishop Wilberforce’s oratory on that occasion was overpowering; the Prince’s eyes were rivetted on him all the while. Sir Robert Peel spoke in a calm, dignified, statesmanlike manner, but the expression of his face was too supercilious to be pleasing. And there was Daniel O’Connell—big, burly, rollicking—who seemed to enjoy the triumph of his own presence, though not permitted to speak. The other time when I remember an awful crush at Exeter Hall was at an anti-slavery meeting, when Lord Brougham took the chair; an M.P. dared to attack his lordship, and his reply was crushing, his long nose twitching all the while with a passion he was unable to repress. He looked as angry as he felt. Amongst the missionaries, the most popular speakers were John Williams, the martyr of Erromanga, and William Knibb, the famous Baptist missionary from Jamaica, and Livingstone’s father-in-law, the venerable Dr. Moffat, who, once upon his legs, seemed as if he could never sit down again. Williams was a heavy man in appearance, but of such evident goodness and earnestness that you were interested in what he said nevertheless. William Knibb was, as far as appearance went, quite the reverse; a fiery speaker, the very picture of a demagogue, the champion of the slave, and a terrible thorn in the sides of the slave-owners. Of women orators we had none in those primitive times, and some of the American women who had come to speak at one or other of the Anti-Slavery Conventions—at that time of constant occurrence—were deeply disappointed that, after coming all the way from America on purpose to deliver their testimony, they were not allowed to open their mouths. It was at Exeter Hall that I first heard Mr. Gough, the Temperance advocate—an actor more than an orator, but of wonderful power.

It was at Crosby Hall that I first heard George Dawson. I think it was at one of the meetings held there in connection with what I may call the anti-Graham, demonstration. On the introduction, in 1843, by Sir James Graham of his Factories Education Bill, the Dissenters assailed it with unexpected vehemence. They denounced it as a scheme for destroying the educational machinery they had, at great expense, provided, and for throwing the care of the young into the hands of the clergy of the Church of England. It was in the East of London that the opposition to this measure originated, and a committee was formed, of which Dr. Andrew Reed was chairman, and his son, afterwards Sir Charles, who lived to become Chairman of the London School Board, was secretary. The agitation spread all over the country, and delegates to a considerable number on one occasion found their way to Crosby Hall. In the course of the proceedings a young man in the gallery got up to say that he came from Birmingham to show how the popular feeling had changed there from the time when Church-and-State mobs had sacked the Dissenting chapels, and driven Dr. Priestley into exile. “Your name, sir?” asked the chairman. “George Dawson,” was the reply, and there he stood in the midst of the grave and reverend seigneurs, calm, youthful, self-possessed, with his dark hair parted in the middle, a voice somewhat husky yet clear. He was a Baptist minister, he said, yet he looked as little like one as it was possible to imagine.

It was a little later, that is, in 1857, Mr. Samuel Morley made his dÉbut in political life, at a meeting in the London Tavern, of which he was chairman, to secure responsible administration in every department of the State, to shut all the back doors which lead to public employment, to throw the public service open to all England, to obtain recognition of merit everywhere, and to put an end to all kinds of promotion by favour or purchase. Mr. Morley’s speech was clear and convincing—more business-like than oratorical—and he never got beyond that. The tide was in his favour—all England was roused by the tale The Times told of neglect and cruel mismanagement in the Crimea. Since then Government has done less and the people more. Has the change been one for the better?

One of the most extraordinary meetings in which I ever took a part was an Orange demonstration in Freemasons’ Hall, the Earl of Roden in the chair. I was a student at the time, and one of my fellow-students was Sir Colman O’Loghlen, the son of the Irish Master of the Rolls. He was a friend of Dan O’Connell’s, and he conceived the idea of getting all or as many of his fellow-students as possible to go to the meeting and break it up. We walked accordingly, each one of us with a good-sized stick in his hand, to the Free-Mason’s Tavern, the mob exclaiming, as we passed along, “There go the Chartists,” and perhaps we did look like them, for none of us were overdressed. In the hall we took up a conspicuous position, and waited patiently, but we had not long to wait. As soon as the clergy and leading Orangemen on the platform had taken their seats, we were ready for the fray. Apart from us, the audience was not large, and we had the hall almost entirely to ourselves. Not a word of the chairman’s address was audible. There was a madman of the name of Captain Acherley who was in the habit, at that time, of attending public meetings solely for the sake of disturbing them, who urged us on—and we were too ready to be urged on. With our voices and our sticks we managed to create a hideous row. The meeting had to come to a premature close, and we marched off, feeling that we had driven back the enemy, and achieved a triumph. Whether we had done any good, however, I more than doubt. There were other and fairer memories, however, in connection with Freemasons’ Hall. It was there I beheld the illustrious Clarkson, who had come in the evening of his life, when his whole frame was bowed with age, and the grasshopper had become a burden, to preside at the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention. All I can remember of him was that he had a red face, grey hair, and was dressed in black. There, and at Exeter Hall, Joseph Sturge, the Apostle of Peace, was often to be seen. He was a well-made man, with a singularly pleasant cast of countenance and attractive voice, and, as was to be expected, as cool as a Quaker. Another great man, now forgotten, was Joseph Buckingham, lecturer, traveller, author, and orator, M.P. for Sheffield.

In the City the places for demonstrations are fewer now than they were. The London Tavern I have already mentioned. Then there was the King’s Arms, I think it was called, in the Poultry, chiefly occupied by Dissenting societies. At the London Coffee House, at the Ludgate Hill corner of the Old Bailey, now utilised by Hope Brothers, but interesting to us as the scene of the birth and childhood of our great artist, Leech, meetings were occasionally held; and then there was the Crown and Anchor, in the Strand, on your left, just before you get to Arundel Street, where Liberals, or, rather, Whigs, delighted to appeal to the people—the only source of legitimate power. It was there that I heard that grand American orator, Beecher, as he pleaded, amidst resounding cheers, the cause of the North during the American Civil War, and the great Temperance orator, Gough, who took Exeter Hall by storm. But it was to Exeter Hall that the tribes repaired—as they do now. When I first knew Exeter Hall, no one ever dreamt of any other way of regenerating society. Agnosticism, Secularism, Spiritualism, and Altruism had not come into existence. Their professors were weeping and wailing in long clothes. Now we have, indeed, swept into a younger day, and society makes lions of men of whom our fathers would have taken no heed. We have become more tolerant—even Exeter Hall has moved with the times. Perhaps one of the boldest things connected with it was the attempt to utilise it for public religious worship on the Sunday. Originally some of the Evangelical clergy had agreed to take part in these services, but the rector of the parish in which Exeter Hall was situated disapproved, and consequently they were unable to appear. The result was the services were conducted by the leading ministers of other denominations, nor were they less successful on that account.