1913] On the English Platform 



day spoke at the South Place Church under the 

 direction of Robert Young. This address was the 

 only one in Europe for which I received an honorarium. 



In Oxford we were guests of Professor Edward B. 

 Poulton, an able naturalist whose important studies 

 of butterflies and the phenomena of mimicry may 

 fairly be called epoch-making. His son Roland, 

 perhaps the best university athlete in England, at 

 the same time a youth of refined quality, rare practi- 

 cal sense, and devotion to his fellows, was one of the 

 most noteworthy of the 1320 Oxford men sacrificed 

 in the first two years of the war. In an Atlantic 

 Monthly article (1916) entitled "The Cost," by Alfred 

 Ollivant, a worthy tribute was paid to him and to 

 Rupert Brooke, the brilliant young poet who died at 

 the Dardanelles. At Oxford I gave no lecture, merely 

 met with the men of Jesus College, because the person 

 supposed to have charge of the arrangements had 

 neglected to post any notice or to provide a room. 

 We next proceeded to Brighton and Lewes, in both of 

 which I spoke on world peace. At Brighton we were 

 guests of Edward Donne, a prominent Friend. 



Afterward in the University of Birmingham, where 

 we were entertained by Professor Frederick W. 

 Gamble, my topic was "War and Manhood." At this 

 meeting Sir Oliver Lodge, rector of the University, Sir Oliver 

 did me the honor to preside. In the course of the Lodge 

 lecture I quoted Dr. Holmes' remark that "there are 

 millions of noble souls who have waited through 

 eternity for parents fit to be born of." Sir Oliver, in 

 expressing the usual thanks, said that he accepted the 

 statement not as a bit of poetry but as literally true, 

 expressing his belief in the preexistence of souls as 

 well as in their survival after death; and he then 



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