On Monday the Rev. H. W. Beecher made a speech
at Glasgow which might match iu taste the effusion of Mr. Lindsay, though it was, of course, on the other side. lie stated that wine was early regarded as a nuisance by himself and his brothers, that he had never seen rum in his father's house, that " a man who is a Christian is in blossom," that he himself is in blossom, that he has said offensive things because he has said things " folks needed and didn't want," that Abraham didn't put Isaac on the altar " half so quick" as he will put his sons on the altar of his country, and, therefore, we conclude, that he is twice as much the friend. of God as Abraham. We have no wish to undervalue a father's sacrifices in sending one son after another to this war, and, no doubt, Mr. Beecher thinks it holy ; but he certainly takes a very offensive way to persuade Englishmen that it is so. It is not easy for us to swallow conceit and rhodomon- tade as bad as ever Dickens mimicked. " When it became evident that the Great Dragon [slavery] must be destroyed, with hands outstretched and swords of fire in their hands, they rose like one man, and with a voice which reverberated throughout the whole world, cried, Let it, with all its attend- ant horrors, go to hell!' " Now is that one of "the offensive things which people needed but didn't want ? " We at least do not feel guilty of " needing " any denunciation of slavery, but this tumid and exasperating nonsense strikes us as an offensive thing which we don't want and don't need, and which, if given without either need or want, gives us the most painful of all sensations—fruitless intellectual retching.
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