AFTER attending the Baptist Centennial at Rochdale, I turn my face toward the east, Nottingham being the objective point. Four hours bring me to my journey’s end, and the reader can scarcely imagine my feelings when, as I step off the train at Nottingham, I am arrested by a sturdy Scotchman. I say to him: “Sir, what does this mean? If you seek for some criminal, some culprit who has violated the laws of the land, you have caught the wrong bird. I am a loyal citizen of the United States of America. I have the necessary papers from government officials to prove what I say. I was never accused of an ungentlemanly or illegal act in America, and since coming to England I have behaved myself; I have kept good company; I have respected your Queen and obeyed the laws of your country.” Although I am as composed as a judge, and notwithstanding the fact that my words ring out like the notes of a silver bell, my speech falls flat. The Scotchman declares that it is entirely unnecessary for me to say another word; that I am his prisoner; that I shall be locked up, but shall not be maltreated; that I shall be dealt with fairly, and, if innocent, released in due time. Strange feelings come over me as I am led captive through the crowded streets of this busy city to be locked within the gloomy prison-walls of a foreign country. Fortunately, however, the darkest hour is just before day. We have not gone far, when the Scotchman throws off the mask and reveals himself as my bosom friend, and fellow-countryman, George Robert Cairns, who is well-known and much beloved from Ohio to California, and who has sung and preached his way into the hearts of thousands of the Scotch and English people. The prison to which he is conducting me proves to be one of the most pleasant and elegant homes in the city. Hence, I feel that I can say with David, “Thou hast turned my mourning into dancing; thou hast put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness.” Nottingham is one of the oldest and most historic cities in all England. It is splendidly situated on the banks of the river Trent in the midst of one of the prettiest and most romantic regions of country anywhere to be found in Her Majesty’s Kingdom. The word “Nottingham” signifies “dwellers in caves,” a name given to the town on account of its early inhabitants dwelling in caves and subterranean passages cut in the yielding rock on which the present city is built. These caves and caverns are still open, and it affords me curious pleasure, with lantern in hand, to wander through their dark recesses. In one of the noted forests by which the town is surrounded, stands a large and venerable oak-tree, more than seven hundred years old, with a wagon road cut through it. These are the lordly forests described in Ivanhoe—the same, also, where Robin Hood held high carnival.