[Illustration: ERNESTINE L. ROSE (with autograph).] At a great public meeting in the Broadway Tabernacle to consider the necessity of an improved system of Free Schools, J. S. Buckingham, M.P., of England, and Rev. Robert Breckenridge, of Kentucky, were among the speakers. Mrs. Rose, sitting in the gallery, called the reverend gentleman to order for violating the sense of the audience, in entirely overlooking the important object which had called the people together, and indulging in a violent clerical harangue against a class whom he stigmatized as infidels. This bold innovation of a woman upon the hitherto unquestioned prerogatives of the clergy, at once caused a tremendous excitement. Loud cries of "Throw her down!" "Drag her out!" "She's an infidel!" resounded in all parts of the building. She, however, held her ground, calm and collected while the tumult lasted, and after quiet was restored, continued her remarks in a most dignified manner, making a deep impression upon all present. Certain religious papers declared it a forewarning of some terrible calamity, that a woman should call a minister to account, and that, too, in a church. Mrs. Rose has lectured in not less than twenty-three different States of the Union. Some of them she has visited often, and on several occasions she has addressed legislative bodies with marked effect, advocating the necessity of legal redress for the wrongs and disabilities to which her sex are subject. As an advocate of woman's rights, anti-slavery and religious liberty, she has earned a world-wide celebrity. For fifty years a public speaker, during which period she has associated with the influential classes in Europe and America, and borne an active part in the great progressive movements which mark the present as the most glorious of historical epochs, Ernestine L. Rose has accomplished for the elevation of her sex and the amelioration of social conditions, a work which can be ascribed to few women of our time. In the spring of 1854, Mrs. Rose and Miss Anthony took a trip together to Washington, Alexandria, Baltimore, Philadelphia, speaking two or three times in each place. This was after the introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in Congress, and the excitement of the country upon the slavery question was intense. Mrs. Rose's third lecture in Washington was on the "Nebraska Question." This lecture was scarcely noticed, the only paper giving it the least report, being _The Washington Globe_, which, though it spoke most highly of her as a lecturer, misrepresented her by ascribing to her the arguments of the South. _The National Era_, the only anti-slavery paper in Washington, was entirely silent, taking no notice of the fact that Mrs. Rose had spoken in that city against the further spread of slavery. Whether this was due to editorial prejudice against sex, or against freedom of religious belief, is unknown.