[34] This at least is the impression left on me by the female speakers (some twenty perhaps) whom I have chanced to hear. I never knew one of them “hum” or “haw,” or stammer, or break down, even when (as in one very remarkable case) the gentle and learned speaker had never addressed an audience till the occasion, when she had already passed middle life. Among the most remarkable phenomena of the present day, I reckon the preaching of Mrs. Booth, the wife of the General of the Salvation Army. The combination of fervent zeal with practical good sense in her extempore discourses must be admired even by those who differ most widely from her views. [35] A curious illustration of this is to be found in a passage in the first series of Mrs. Kemble’s charming autobiography published three years ago. She describes the late Lady Byron as often expressing envy of her (Mrs. Kemble’s) public readings, and her longing to have similar crowds in sympathy with her own impressions. “I made her laugh,” says Mrs. Kemble, “by telling her that more than once, when looking from my reading-desk over the sea of faces uplifted toward me, a sudden feeling had seized me that I must say something _from myself_ to all those human beings whose attention I felt at that moment entirely at my command, and between whom and myself a sense of sympathy thrilled powerfully and strangely through my heart as I looked steadfastly at them before opening my lips; but that on wondering afterwards what I might, could, would, or should have said to them from myself, I never could think of anything but two words--‘_Be good!_’” (Page 317.) THE HOUSE ON THE SHORE OF ETERNITY. AN ALLEGORY. Two simple-minded men, who had dwelt all their lives in a country far inland, at last undertook a long journey together. This happened many ages ago, when there were no such things as printed books or village schools, and when the people in isolated districts saw no travellers, and knew nothing of the great world beyond the hills which closed their horizon.