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An' thank GOD it is so, aye, thank GOD, aw say,
He's better nor ony can tell;

There's summut we geet fro' Him every day,
An' music He gives us as well:

He gives it to sattle down passion an' strife,
An' turn 'em to peace an' to love;

There's beauty i' nature, there's music i' loife,

On earth as in heaven above.

But aw think, of a' music there's nowt loike to th' praise

We give to th' dear Saviour an' King;

It seems as if th' tune, loike, were able to raise

One's spirits to th' height as we sing:

An' aw'm sure they draw th' angels, an' make 'em come nigh;

They float upo' th' tune i' the air;

An' with it they sink, an' they rise, till they lie

Beside us to comfort in prayer.

Then let those walk eawt i' th' country as choose,
Or sit still an' read i' their cheer;

But aw'l go to th' chapel, an' th' privilege use
As long as aw've chance whole aw'm here.
Aw dunno say those folks as differ fro' me,
U'll not geet to heaven as well;

But this aw mun say, as aw conna quite see

Heaw they're takin' th' best care o' thersel.

Address of the Editor-36, CORPORATION STREET, MANCHESTER. Instructions in Phonography, or Phonetic Shorthand, personally or by Post. Terms moderate.

Vol. 8 of "The Popular Lecturer and Reader." Price 2s. 6d. cloth, lettered. This Volume contains 20 Lectures and 18 Readings.

"We commend Mr. Pitman's volume."-The Athenæum.

Sent post-free for 30 Stamps, by the Editor, HENRY PITMAN, 36, Corporation-street, Manchester.

"The Co-operator," price 1d., published Monthly, records the wonderful progress of the Co-operative Movement. Edited by HENRY PITMAN.

London: FRED. PITMAN, 20, Paternoster Row, E.C.

Printed by J. WARD, Dewsbury.

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Popular Lecturer and Reader.

Edited by HENRY PITMAN, Manchester.

No. 16. (New)

Series.

APRIL, 1864.

THE AMERICAN WAR:

FACTS AND FALLACIES.

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BY

HANDEL COSSHAM, ESQ., F.G.S.

[Delivered in the Broadmead Rooms, Bristol, Feb. 12, 1864.]

My object to-night will be to place before you, in as condensed and clear a light as I can, the teachings and results of the present most unfortunate contest in America, and to call attention to some of the facts and fallacies which the discussion of the subject during the last three years has brought out and I think I shall not be presuming too much if I remark at the outset, that we have had more mistakes made, and more "unfulfilled prophecy," relative to the causes and probable results of the American War, than we have on any great subject of national interest during the last quarter of a century. The discussion of this question has developed an amount of ignorance relative to the feelings, history, resources, and government of the United States, that I confess I was not at all prepared for, and that I think is not very creditable to those who profess to guide the opinions of the people of this country. Thanks, however, to the natural instincts of the English people, and the kind of instinctive perception of right and wrong there is among the great masses of our countrymen, there has been from the beginning a large proportion, and (I believe, with Earl Russell) a large majority of people, who have refused to give their sympathy and aid to the efforts of the Southern States of America to establish a separate

16.-APRIL.

government, with Slavery as its distinctive feature, and human bondage as its "corner stone.” I think I shall not be wrong also in assuming-and, in fact, in asserting that during the last twelve months there has been a vast change in public feeling on the question; and that there is at present much less sympathy felt in this country for the Southern Confederacy than there was; and also that there is much less confidence felt as to the ultimate success of the rebellion. I have never made any secret of the fact that, from beginning to end, my sympathy has been with the North during the present struggle-of course, I do not mean that I sympathise with every act of the North, or would attempt to justify all they have done or left undone —and I rejoice in the conviction that the infamous attempt to create a great slave empire has failed, and that for the future the government of the United States will be in favour of liberty, and against slavery.

There are two reasons why I have felt so strongly and spoken so earnestly on the subject. 1st. Because the South have never shown one tittle of legal or moral justification for this rebellion; they could not say they had been oppressed, for the government had been for 50 years almost entirely in their own hands, and the whole policy of the country had been framed to meet their views and wishes; in fact, they had paid far less and received far more from the government than the North. 2nd. Another reason why I have felt that the South was not entitled to our sympathy was, because they appealed from reason and constitutional law, to bullets and bloodshed. They refused to submit their case to the arbitration of argument and public opinion, and resolved to plunge their country into all the horrors of civil war, rather than allow the system that is condemned by the almost universal conscience of man, and the verdict of the whole civilised world, to be checked or confined. For the truth cannot be too frequently referred to, that, prior to the war, the North never claimed the right to touch slavery. They admitted, over and over again, that in the States where it existed, it must remain, until the ma jority in those States consented to its abolition. This formed for years the great subject of controversy between the extreme Abolition party of the North, and the Repub lican party now in power. The abolition section said, we claim the right for the Federal Government to deal with

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