I now come to that great modern statesman, Christian, friend of the church, and defender of the illustrious U. S. Grant, and the still more illustrious Babcock, the personification of the late Board of Public Works, and all the crimes it was heir to. It was not to be expected that a gentleman of so much goodness of heart, so wise, modest, and retiring; a gentleman whose heart yearned every hour of the day to do generous acts for the benefit of his fellow-men—who went to bed of a night contemplating the amount of good he could do for mankind in general and Washington in particular; whose disinterestedness caused him to forget himself entirely—a man, I assert here without fear of contradiction, who, by his own unaided exertions, had raised himself from the position of an humble plumber and gas-fitter—thankful for a job, no matter how small—to the high position of a governor, a modern statesman, a friend of humanity, and an adviser of the President. Here let me say, as a lover of truth and justice, that a great deal has been said about the fall of this great modern statesman, and very little about his rise. To us the rise is the most important part of it, and for the very reason that it repeats the story of Whittington and his cat, thrice Lord Mayor of London, to say nothing of honest Sancho Panza and his government of the island of Barritario. But comparisons between governors are odious, as Mrs. Malliprop said. Just here I confess, as a lover of the truth of history, to have erred and strayed from my subject. My object was to show you that Alexander R. Shepherd (according to Mr. Elvans,) was one of the original conspirators for robbing the Freedmen’s Bank! This is sad, but it is true. He appears in Mr. John R. Elvans’ transcript, as follows: 7. “Loan to A. R. S.” (Alexander R. Shepherd) “of $15,000, on lots 5 and 6, square 452.” I was informed on good authority that these lots, on which Mr. A. R. Shepherd borrowed fifteen thousand dollars, were not worth half the amount. This gentleman’s future operations with the bank were conducted on a more magnificent scale, but in the names of other persons. As Mr. Beverly Douglas said during his investigation into the affairs of the bank, it was marvelous to see how many of other peoples’ fingers Mr. Shepherd had used to pull the Freedmen’s Bank chestnuts for him. I had hoped that the solemn and impressive death of that other great modern statesman and benefactor of mankind, William Marcy Tweed, would have had a good effect on the moral and religious status of our late governor. But recent events convince me that the solemn and impressive warning remains unheeded. Here again we have another Christian statesman, of high standing in the Republican church, who wants the Freedmen’s money—doubtless for a pious purpose. 8. “Henry D. Cooke, (chairman of the Finance Committee,) loan of $10,000 on 400 shares of stock of the Young Men’s Christian Association.”