"I hardly knew whether I was in the body or out of the body," answered Edgar. "For a little while, at least, I was not conscious of the flesh. I had a taste of how the work of eternity may be done with the soul."
"The _Times_ admits the two hundred thousand," said Piers, "and also that it was a remarkably orderly meeting. Who opened it? Was it Mr. O'Connell?"
"The meeting was opened by the singing of a hymn. There were nine stanzas in it, and every one was sung with the most enthusiastic feeling. I remember only the opening lines:
"'Over mountain, over plain, Echoing wide from sea to sea, Peals--and shall not peal in vain-- The trumpet call of Liberty!'
But can you imagine what a majestic volume of sonorous melody came from those two hundred thousand hearts? It was heard for miles. The majority of the singers believed, with all their souls, that it was heard in heaven."
"Well, I never before heard of singing a hymn to open a political meeting," said the Squire. "It does not seem natural."
"But, Father, you are used to political meetings opened by prayer, for the House has its chaplain. The Rev. Hugh Hutton prayed after the hymn."
"I dare say not, Father. He is an Unitarian minister; for it is only the Unitarians that will pray with, or pray for, Radicals. I should not quite say that. There is a Roman Catholic priest who is a member of the Birmingham Union,--a splendid-looking man, a fine orator, and full of the noblest public spirit; but a Birmingham meeting would never think of asking him to pray. They would not believe a Catholic could get a blessing down from heaven if he tried."[3]
------ [Footnote 3: This intolerance, general and common in the England of that day, is now happily much mitigated.]
"What of O'Connell?" said the Squire; "he interests me most."
"O'Connell outdid himself. About four hundred women in one body had been allowed to stand near the platform, and the moment his eyes rested on them his quick instinct decided the opening sentence of his address. He bowed to them, and said, 'Surrounded as I am by the fair, the good, and the gentle.' They cheered at these words; and then the men behind them cheered, and the crowds behind cheered, because the crowds before cheered; and then he launched into such an arraignment of the English Government as human words never before compassed. And in it he was guilty of one delightful bull. It was in this way. Among other grave charges, he referred to the fact that births had decreased in Dublin five thousand every year for the last four years, and then passionately exclaimed, 'I charge the British Government with the murder of those twenty thousand infants!' and really, for a few moments, the audience did not see the delightful absurdity."