The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-14 00:00:00

th JBO causes, that instead of continuing the ancient free go-

a thousand years a great change has been made on Africa,

vernment of France, established a despotic government and
opinion and liberty of every kind rose against that despo•
tism, and on its attempts to improve and reform the Go-

no doubt the gain to the civilisation of the human race
must be great. (Applause.) There is another portion of the
globe where we still have to lament the scenes of bloodshed
which are to be witnessed—where we still have to lament

vernment of France such horrible crimes were committed.

(Cheers.) At the same time—not a very distant time from

that the bloody arbitrament of war has not been brought to
a close ; and, if there is any bright spot in that dark scene,
it is for the African race. (Applause,) But I cannot but
believe that the civil war in America, whichever way it may
end, whether the States may again unite, or whether there

Charles VIII, of France—another Sovereign, Charles V.,

had likewise destroyed all the traces of free government
which he could find. In Italy he destroyed that wonderful
and admirable Republic of Florence, which had produced so
many men of genius, which had produced Dante and Pe-
trarch and Blichael Angelo, men in science and art of the
greatest genius. (Cheers.) That republic, that species of free
government, waedestroyed ; and although they had, during
that time, to boast of the genius and discoveries of Galileo,
yet literature. to longer flourished as it had, and that beau-
tiful and famous republic fell into a state of apathy and
disgrace. (Hear.) There was another country in which
Charles V. and his preceptors destroyed an ancient free

is to be a final separation—l cannot but believe that out of

these events the African race are to receive their freedom.
I am sure I need not speak to you of abhorrence of slavery,

because we must all have that abhorrence as strong as we

have had, but there is one thing which makes it quite im-
possible that the master and the slave should ever live in
harmony together. With regard to other kinds of property
—to which the slave masters assimilate them—with regard
to horses, dogs, and other animals, it is the interest of the
master to keep them well fed, happy, and contented. He is
quite sure that these animals have no plot and conspiracy
againstihim, But with regard to slaves—to the human being
—every slave master knows that the Almighty has planted
a spark of freedom in the breast of every man, and ho always
suspects and always fears that the day may come when the
slaves may conspire together against his interest and against
his master. (Applause.) For this reason, then, among
many others, we may all wish, among future benefits that
are to be conferred upon mankind, that that kind of African
slavery at all events will reach its termination. But now
with regard to what I have said as to the progress of relin
gion. I may cite to you the opinion of a man of great mo-
deration and of great learning—l mean Dr. Milman, Dean
of St Paul's. I have a long quotation, but as it enters upon
controversial matters I shall only give a few words :
" Christianity may yet have to exercise a far holier, even if
more silent and untraceable influence, through its primary,
all-penetrating, all-pervading influences on the civilization
of mankind." That I believe to be true—that whatever we
may do as to government, as to manners, as to religion, it
will be accompanied and guided by a greater influence, by
a wider influence than has ever been known—that of Chris-
tianity on the civilization of the world. But we must be.
ware, lest in the discussions that are going on, although we
may rejoice in seeing the utmost earnestness, we must take
care that we do not part with any portion of our charter.
We have seen of late years men embrace the most different
forms of Christianity, but all with the greatest earnestness
and with the greatest sincerity. It seems to me that it
would be strange, indeed, that we should impute to such
men—men who have laboured honestly and earnestly to
arrive at the truth—that we should impute to them as a
crime that they have erred, It is said that men have done
wrong, because they have wished to give any indulgence to
their passions, and because they have wished to indufge their
vanity in some new form. That may be the case, but we
should be very slow to indulge these suspicions ; we ought in
charity rather to suppose that men intent upon so great a
problem—intent upon inquiries so interesting to their own
lives, and to their own happiness, will endeavour, at all
events, to be right. It seems to me, there is some likeness
in the else to an event that might happen on your sea shore
on the signs of the beginning of a storm that may scatter
vessels far and wide, and when some vessels seek to get
into a narrow harbour where, in the port itself they would
not be safe, and where others might be carried far out to sea
and lost amid the sands and shoals of some far distant shore.
We might rejoice in our safety if we were not lost like these
men—but, at all events, although we might congratulate
ourselves on that safety, we should never hold language so
barbarous as to impute to any fault of theirs the efforts of
the men who have still sought safety, although they may
have taken an erroneous way of reaching it. (Applause.)
It appears to me, therefore, that as you in the world—as we
all in the world—shall have to encounter many opinions, as
there is likely to be even still more a struggle of various
opinions than there has been, that we should still be mind-
ful of the great precept of the apostle, " Faith, hope, and
charity; but the greatest of these is charity." (Applause.)
You will forgive me, I hope, for saying these words on be-
half of fallible men, to whom their brethren ought to show
every forbearance and kindness. I trust that the world
will make its progress in freedom, in fair discussion Of
opinion, and in true religion, but I am sure that on all these
subjec's we ought to forbear with one another. (Applause.)
I thank you for listening to these opinions, which have
not been all well matured, but, at all events, I have given
them to you such as they arc, and I heartily thank you fur
your attention. (Applause.)
llr lIABrEn, divinity student, then rose and read and
presented to Earl Russell the following address :
"TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL RUSSELL, X.G.,
LORD RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN.
" My Lord Rector—ln name of the students of Aberdeen
University we beg to express our grateful sense of privilege
which enables us to-day to welcome your lordship as the re
presentative of eur rights and interests at this :ancient seat
of learning. So tar as that office is an honour we have
offered it to your lordship in recognition of your lordship's
career of pre-eminent public usefulness, and in admiration
of the lofty patriotism and disinterested zaal with which,
for upwards of half a century, you have faithfully and
honourably served your Sovereign and your country.
" We have the honour, to be, Sco."

constitution, a constitution greatly resembling our own—l
mean. the constitution of Spain, (Cheers.) You have all
heard of the fierce spirit that reigned in Arragon when the

representative of the Commons told the King, "We will

Qb(-Jy you if you observe the laws ; and, if not, not." (Re-
newed cheers.) You have all heard of the way in which the
towns of Castile received the orders of the King when they

considered them illegal, when they said that they should be
cbeyed, but not fulfilled—when they said that when those
orders were illegal, although they would pay them respect

as the orders of the sovereign, but they never would put them
into effect—they would never fulfil those orders which were
against their rights and privileges. (Cheers.) This free
constitution Charles V. destroyed, and never again did that
Assembly of the Cortes meet till near our own day, nor was

any voice of freedom heard among that people. (Cheers.)
And what was the consequence? The Spaniards had been
rising, rising rapidly, to a great height of fame ; the re-
nown of their arms in the Old World, even when they were
fighting in a bad cause, their courage and their discipline
were the most remarkable in Europe; and you have all
heard of the conquests they have made in the New World ;
but from the time the Spanish people were given up to poli-
tical despotism and religious inquisition, from that time the
spirit of the people drooped—from that time Spain began to
decline ; and you have all heard Spain spoken of as being

at the beginning of this century a country that was in the
utmost state of fall and degradation. (Cheers.) Then,
with regard to the causes which influence the riso and fall
of nations, it is no matter of indifference that a people
should enjoy a free Constitution—that a people should have
free liberty of expression—what in our modern days is
called liberty of the press, but was then called liberty of
thought and of expression ; it is no matter of indifference

that a people should enjoy religious liberty and freedom to
search the truth, for it is by these things that a State be-
comes great and flourishing--it is by these things that it
can keep that greatness. (Cheers.) It is not to be doubted
that it may be proved, if you look through centuries, that a

Sovereign, by getting hold of the supreme power of the
State, by quenching all liberty, by forbidding all expression

of opinion, may for a time conduct a flourishing State ; Lut
we have seen the catastrophes which follow the assumption
of such power. We have seen the catastrophe of France in
her great and memorable and dreadful Revolution—we have
seen the catastrophe of Spain in that state of utter apathy,
that utter nullity into which she fell owing to the depriva-
tion of her liberty and of all freedom of thought and ex-

pression. (Cheers.) Now, having spoken of these histori-
cal examples, I will proceed to some more perilous ground,

because hitherto, at all events, we had the footsteps o

history t® follow, and we knew of the events which had
befallen, although we might not interpret them aright.
But let us now consider what is the present state of

Europe and of the world—(cheers)—and regard those
great problems of Government, of the maintenance and fall

of States, of literature, and even of religion. I will keep you

but a short time on these matters, because, as I have said, il

is a perilous ground to walk upon, and there are ashes but a
short waybencath the surface which I might find to be burn-
ing under my foot, (Laughter.) In the first place, however,
I think we may say pretty surely that that calamity which
overw'oelmed the Roman Empire—an irruption of barbarous
races putting an end to the smooth, polished, and civilised
state of society, is not a catastrophe to be dreaded at the pre-
sent time. I think you will find if you look over the history
of the world for two or three centuries back, and especially
at the present time,that barbarian races are constantly giving
way before the civilised races, or becoming portions of the
same people, though generally in an inferior capacity, as the
Indians of Mexico now are, or else what is frequent, and, at
the same time, is lamentable, these barbarian races sink and
disappear and perish altogether before the inroad of civilised
man. We may see something of events like these going on
in several places; one a colony of our own, others in parts
of foreign empires. But, at all events, you may see that
where there is a struggle between the civilised and the savage
man, the savage man always yields; and therefore we may
expect, unless something totally unusual, something totally
out of the course of what we have seen happen before, tha
civilised man will bear the sway over the globe. (Applause,)
So far, at least, we may dkaose of the question of another
irruption of barbarians. But there is another thing, I think
which all recent events for a century have shown—viz., that
civilised men of the European races—of the races of Europe
or of those who have been trat.sferred to America—are
superior even to highly civilised men of the Asiatic race—
(applause)—l think we cannot doubt that, whether we
speak of India or of China, that superiority of the Euro-
pean race is uncontested and uncontestable. (Applause.)
Let us proceed to inquire whether, with regard to Europe,
any improvements have been made in the Government. I
need not speak of our own country, because our own
country has now for many years enjoyed in its perfection,
or nearly in its perfection, that which I believe to be the
best of the imperfect forms of Government which man can
attain to. (Cheers.) I do not believe it is possible for
men to invent a better form of Government than free re-
presentative Government. (Applause.) And I do not
believe efglYAlitt i 213 iTithe, nokUlkaa
beg you to observe that in no very lung time a represen-
tative Government, more or less imperfect, has sprung
up in various parts of Europe. And when I say more or
less imperfect, I think we are apt to be too critical in our
observations on foreign countries ; and although we have,
as I have just stated, arrived at a perfect form of this Go-
vernment, yet recollect that from the accession of James I.
to the accession of George I. there was a perpetual struggle
going on between the powers of the sovereign authority on
the one hand—l will not call it despotism, for that was not
the attempt—and popular privilege on the other. (Cheers,)
It was not till that century of struggle was over that we
could have said that we were safe in the harbour of con-
stitutional representative monarchy. (Applause.) While
making these observations therefore as to struggles that
may be still going on in foreign countries, as they formerly
went on in ours, I bog you to observe that in France, in
Austria, in Spain, in Portugal, and in some other countries
we have forms of representative monarchy. But what I
confess I rejoice in especially is that Italy, which was so
long dead, that Italy which for so many centuries lay in the
torpor to which she had been condemned by those arms of
Charles V. of which I have spoken—has roused herself,
and has risen again ; and as she flourished once as the re-
public of a single city, spreading its arts and arms every-
where—as she flourished again as a number of disunited
republics, each distinguished by its arts, by its vigour in
carrying on war and contest against the others—so I hope
now there may be a third shape of freedom and happiness
to Italy, and that as a constitutional monarchy she will
shine again among the powers and states of Europe. (Loud
cheers.) Nor can I without emotion contemplate the efforts
that are making by the single state of Greece, when I see
that state struggling to get through its factions and its diffi-
culties of every kind, when I recollect that from that coun-
try appeared poets, historians, mathematicians, and philo-
sophers, men of every kind of genius, who, in a very short
period of the existence of the ancient states of Greece, and
within that small compass of land, produced more genius,
did more for the arts and civilisation of mankind, did more
for the example of letters, did more to teach you in this
University of Aberdeen the first beginnings and the know-
ledge of civilisation than the thousands of millions who in
China and in India, and in the vast regions of the East and
West, have followed their generations through the world.
(Applause.) There is a quarter of the world to but a small
part of which any light of civilisation has penetrated, and
which is still in a state not only of barbarism, but where
the most horrible atrocities are practised. I am now allud-
ing to the continent of Africa—l am alluding to tho
state of a great portion of the globe, which, however, has
not been stagnant, because that portion of the globe has in
many of its coasts got rid of that detestable crime, the slave
trade, and where the knowledge of Christianity, the know-
ledge of cultivation, the knowledge of agriculture are be-
ginning to make some way. With regard to this continent
Dr Livingstone—(loud applause)—told an anecdote not long
ago, that when he was making his praiseworthy explora-
tions the art and policy of substituting cultivation and
Christianity for the evils of the slave trade were known by
the name of the Palmerston policy. (Applause.) But many
persons have said that the case his hopeless ; they have said
that the people of Africa are utterly barbarous, It is some-
thing that there are those who have another belief, and who
believe that the people may yet be civilised, that all our
pains will not be thrown away, that all those lives which we
have unfortunately lost in the task of civilising Africa will
not be a useless sacrifice, but that light is still to shine in
that quarter of the world. (Applause.) Of that faith was a
man who was never named in society but with honour—
Capt. Spoke, the traveller of Africa. (Applause.) I asked
him if he thought Africa at some future time was to play a
great part among the civilised nations of the world, and he
told me that ho firmly believed that that would be the case.
No doubt it will appear desperate, but I remember hearing
that a person who always mingled something striking with
the lessons of his se isdom—l mean Sydney Smith—happened
to be inthe Political Economy Club when a gentleman, a dis-
tinguished men of science, member of that club, said in the
course of a speech that he believed the Africans would never
be capable of being civilised. " Well," Sydney Smith said
afterwards, " well, you made an excellent speech, but it was
just such a speech as a senator of Rome would have made
in the Senate of Rome to prove that it was quite hopeless to
civilise the Britons." (Loud applause.) Such, then, are
my views. Progress is very slow ; but on questions such as
I am treating to-day we must perpetually recollect that
which I have mentioned before, that in the eyes of the
Almighty a thousand years aro but as ono day, and if in

The Lotto RECTOR, in reply, said—Gentlemen, 1 will
only say that I am deeply grateful to you for this address.
I daresay I have made a great many errors and mistakes ;
but at all events you have the kindness to think that I have
intended to benefit my country, and I have done my best
for that object. (Applause.)
On the motion of ex-Provost WEBSTER, three cheers were
then given for the Lord Rector, and three cheers for Lady
Georgians Russell, which terminated the proceedings.

THE MURDEROUS ASSAULT AT CAMBERWELL,—
On the 10th uit. a paragraph appeared in this jour-
nal setting forth that a gentleman named} Sheffell was
We'kl 1 va Mai WeLinalchfh iirgifve gf tairrgiegri:
strato at Lambeth that the paragraph in question was false;
but our reporter has since made strict inquiries from Mr
Sheffell (who has only just recovered from the attack),
and other persons, and he finds that his report was sub-
stantially correct, and that Mr Dann's statement was error
neous. The only inaccuracy was with respect to the amount
of which Nlr Sheffell was robbed. The sum was £2 Ils in-
stead of £lO as reported.
MATRIMONIAL HOAX AT BIRKENHEAD,—About
a week or ten days ago there appeared an advertise-
ment from some adventurer, who described himself as a
" gentleman, aged 24 years, in a very respectable position,"
and who wished to "communicate with an amiable
young lady from 18 to 22, with a view to matrimony."
This advertisement attracted the notice of several young
men at Birkenhead, and, bent upon having some fun at
the expense of the unknown wife-hunter, they addressed
a letter to " B 92, Mercury office," under the signature of
"E. Stewart," who describes himself as an '6 amiable
young lady," with good pecuniary prospects. The bait
took, and, after one or two loving epistles had passed
between the " couple," the young lady proposed a meet-
ing with her unknown admirer, who gave the name of
" P. Oleck," and stated that he was a native of Germany,
and resided in Rodney-street, Liverpool. A meeting was
accordingly arranged to take place at the Grange Hotel
Grange Lane, where, the young lady alleged, she was stay-'
ing with a relative. The night arrived, and the foreigner
made his appearance at the Grange Hotel, but as "Miss
Stewart" was not punctual to her appointment ho imme-
diately left, doubtless suspecting that he was about to be
caught in a trap. The "young lady," however, wrote on
the following day a letter, apologising for not fulfilling her
engagement on the previous night, alleging that a rich
uncle had just arrived in this country after a long absence
abroad, and that she could not leave him. She concluded
by proposing another meeting for Monday night at the
Dock Hotel, which she said was kept by a particular friend
of hers. This brought a reply from the adventurer, who ex-
pressed his willingness to meet Miss Stewart" at the place
named, and, said he, "If it shall happen that I am ten
or fifteen minutes too late, excuse me, as I am a stranger
in town." He also requested the young lady to "begin"
towards him, "as it will be hard for mo to introduce
myself to your friends, as I am a little shy from tho wel-
come I had at the Grange Hotel." The time fixed was 7
o'clock, and at that hour a party of young fellows were as-
sembled at the Dock Rotel. Punctual to the minute, "P.
Oleck," the foreigner, entered the hotel, and took a scat in
the parlour. After a short time, a servant entered the
apartment and asked him whether he was the gentleman
who wished to see "Miss Stewart." He replied that ho was,
and he was then asked upstairs to the drawing-room, the
servant stating that the young lady would be with him
immediately. Anxiously the foreigner waited, but instead
of meeting an amiable young lady, about 30 young fellows,
headed by "Miss Stewart" in male attire, rushed into the
room and began to torment the wife-hunter. The poor
fellow was thunderstruck ; in broken English he begged to
be allowed to leave the house, but the " young lady" and
her companions were inexorable. A jury was empannelled,
a judge appointed, and learned counsel were named to pre-
fer the charge against the defendant of attempting to obtain
a wife by false representations. After hearing evidence
and sundry speeches, the jury found the wife-hunter guilty,
and as a penalty for his offence he was ordered to stand
glasses reund, or in default to be blacked and floured. The
unhappy adventurer had only just enough in his pockets
to pay his fare back to Liverpool, and consequently had to
submit to the second part of the sentence. His tormentors
bedaubed his clothes with soot and grease, and afterwards
sprinkled him with flour. In this condition they escorted
him to Woodside Ferry, amidst the laughter of the con-
spirators and a number of other persons who were in the
secret. The foreigner, after being badgered and teased for
upwards of two hours, was permitted to cross to Liverpool.

Liverpool Mercury.
LADVERTISEMENT.] —Holloway's Pills,—Bilious corn.
plaints and irregularities of the system produced by de-
praved or over-abundant bile can always be corrected by a
few doses of these inestimable pills, which are everywhere
admired for their rare combination of mildness and power ;
for though they conquer with ease and rapidity the most
obstinate disease,ttey never weaken the stomach nor neces-
sitate any interruption of ordinary duties or amusements;
on the contrary, they increase the appetite, strengthen the
organs of digestion, give increased eaergy and life to all the
animal functions, and fit both hand and brain for fresh
exertions. The sick and enfeebled can easily discover what
a happy revolution these pills have the power to effect in
the human system.

rHE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 14, 1864.