they had themselves for most of their lives been diligently engaged.
[Cheers.]


ANTISLAVERY SOCIETY, EXETER HALL--MAY 16.

THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY, who, on coming forward to open the proceedings,
was received with much applause, spoke as follows: "We are assembled
here this night to protest, with the utmost intensity, and with all the
force which language can command, against the greatest wrong that the
wickedness of man ever perpetrated upon his fellow-man--[loud cheers]--a
wrong which, great in all ages--great in heathen times--great in all
countries--great even under heathen sentiments--is indescribably
monstrous in Christian days, and exercised as it is, not unfrequently,
over Christian people. [Hear!] It is surely remarkable, and exceedingly
disgraceful to a century and a generation so boastful of its progress,
and of the institution of so many Bible societies, with so many
professions and preachments of Christianity--with so many declarations
of the spiritual value of man before God--after so many declarations of
this equality of every man in the sight of his fellow-man--that we
should be assembled here this evening to protest against the conduct of
a mighty and a Protestant people, who, in the spirit of the Romish
Babylon, which they had renounced, resort to her most abominable
practices--making merchandise of the temples of God, and trafficking in
the bodies and souls of men. [Cheers.] We are not here to proclaim and
maintain our own immaculate purity. We are not here to stand forward and
say, 'I am holier than thou.' We have confessed, and that openly, and
freely, and unreservedly, our share, our heavy share, in by-gone days,
of vast wickedness; we have, we declare it again, and we had our deep
remorse. We sympathize with the preponderating bulk of the American