The Hon. Jonathan Phillips, a relative of Wendell Phillips, presided over the crowded assemblage. Dr. Channing spoke eloquently. Soon in the gallery, James T. Austin, the Attorney-General of Massachusetts, a prominent lawyer, and member of Dr. Channing's congregation, arose and declared that Lovejoy "died as the fool dieth," and compared his murderers to the men who destroyed the tea in Boston harbor. The audience was intensely excited. Young Phillips, twenty-six years old and comparatively unknown, standing among the people,--there are no seats in the hall,--said to his neighbor, "Such a speech in Faneuil Hall must be answered in Faneuil Hall." "Why not answer it yourself?" whispered the man. "Help me to the platform and I will," was the reply; and pushing his way through the turbulent crowd he reached the rostrum. He began with all the grace and self-control which characterized him in after years. There were mingled cries of, "Question," "Hear him," "Go on," "No gagging," and the like. "Riding the whirlwind undismayed," says George William Curtis, in his eulogy, "he stood upon the platform in all the beauty and grace of imperial youth--the Greeks would have said a god descended--and in words that touched the mind and heart and conscience of that vast multitude, as with fire from heaven, recalling Boston to herself, he saved his native city and her cradle of liberty from the damning disgrace of stoning the first martyr in the great struggle for personal freedom." "Mr. Chairman," he said, "when I heard the gentleman lay down principles which place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips (pointing to the portraits on the wall) would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American--the slanderer of the dead.... Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have yawned and swallowed him up." This was received with applause and hisses, with cries of, "Make him take back 'recreant.' He sha'n't go on till he takes it back." As soon as he could proceed he said, "Fellow-citizens, I cannot take back my words. Surely the Attorney-General, so long and well-known here, needs not the aid of your hisses against one so young as I am,--my voice never before heard within these walls!" "In the annals of American speech," says Curtis, "there had been no such scene since Patrick Henry's electrical warning to George the Third.... Three such scenes are illustrious in our history. That of the speech of Patrick Henry at Williamsburg, of Wendell Phillips in Faneuil Hall, and of Abraham Lincoln in Gettysburg--three, and there is no fourth."