Another Assembly began in 1877, with high expectations, at Lake Bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, thirty-five miles north of Chicago. It was confidently supposed that on a direct railroad line from the great city, Lake Bluff would draw large audiences, and Dr. Vincent was engaged to organize and conduct an Assembly upon the Chautauqua plan, with lecturers and workers from that headquarters. A strong program was prepared for the opening session. Among the lecturers was the Rev. Joseph Cook, at that time one of the most prominent and popular speakers in the land. I recall in one of his lectures at Lake Bluff a sentence, wholly unpremeditated, which thrilled the audience and has always seemed to me one of the most eloquent utterances I have ever heard. It was twelve years after the Civil War, and on our way to the Assembly we passed the marble monument crowned with the statue of Stephen A. Douglas, the competitor of Lincoln for the Senatorship and Presidency, but after the opening of the war his loyal supporter for the few months before his death. Dr. Cook was giving a history of the forces in the nation which brought on the secession of the Southern States. He referred to Daniel Webster in the highest praise, declaring that his compromise measures, such as the Fugitive Slave Law, were dictated by a supreme love for the Union, which if preserved would in time have made an end of slavery, and he added a sentence of which this is the substance. Had it been given to Daniel Webster, as it was given to Edward Everett, to live until the guns were fired upon Fort Sumter, there would have been an end of compromise. He would have stamped that mighty foot with a sound that would have rung throughout the land, have called forth a million men, and might have averted the war! Just then a voice rang out from one of the seats--"As Douglas did!" Joseph Cook paused a moment. His chest swelled as he drew in a breath, and then looking at the man who had interrupted him, he spoke in that powerful voice: The firmament above the massive brow of Daniel Webster was a vaster arch than that over the narrow forehead of Stephen A. Douglas, and the lightning that rent the clouds from the dying face of one, would never have been needed to bring daylight to the other! I was seated beside the Rev. Charles F. Deems of New York, a Southerner by birth and in his sympathies through the then recent war. He turned to me and said: "That was the most magnificent sentence that I have ever heard!" There was a moment of silence, and then a burst of applause from the audience.