We were arranged at this meeting much as in Glasgow. The lord provost presided; and in the gallery with us were distinguished men from the magistracy, the university, and the ministry, with their wives, besides the members of the antislavery societies. The lord provost, I am told, has been particularly efficient in all benevolent operations, especially those for the education of the poorer classes. He is also a zealous supporter of the temperance cause.
Among the speakers, I was especially interested in Dr. Guthrie, who seems to be also a particular favorite of the public. He is a tall, thin man, with a kind of quaintness in his mode of expressing himself, which sometimes gives an air of drollery to his speaking. He is a minister of the Free Church, and has more particularly distinguished himself by his exertions in behalf of the poorer classes.
One passage in his speech I will quote, for I was quite amused with it. It was in allusion to the retorts which had been made in Mrs. Tyler's letter to the ladies of England, on the defects in the old country.
"I do not deny," he said, "that there are defects in our country. What I say of them is this--that they are incidental very much to an old country like our own. Dr. Simpson knows very well, and so does every medical man, that when a man gets old he gets very infirm, his blood vessels get ossified, and so on; but I shall not enter into that part of the subject. What is true of an old country is true of old men, and old women, too. I am very much disposed to say of this young nation of America, that their teasing us with our defects might just get the answer which a worthy member of the church of Scotland gave to his son, who was so dissatisfied with the defects in the church, that he was determined to go over to a younger communion. 'Ah, Sandy, Sandy, man, when your lum reeks as lang as ours, it will, may be, need sweeping too.'[J] Now, I do not deny that we need sweeping; every body knows that I have been singing out about sweeping for the last five years. Let me tell my good friends in Edinburgh, and in the country, that the sooner you sweep the better; for the chimney may catch fire, and reduce your noble fabric to ashes.