i 



102 ORGANISATION 



read on the sea-beach at Tynemouth to some 3000 or 

 4000 colliers and rabble (mixed with a sprinkling 

 of their employers), which has produced a sensation 

 such as is not likely to die away for years. I am told 

 by ear- and eye-witnesses that it is impossible to con- 

 ceive the sublimity of the scene, as he stood on the 

 point of a rock a little raised, to which he rushed as 

 if by a sudden impulse, and led them on from the 

 scene around them to the wonders of the coal-country 

 below them, thence to the economy of a coal-field, 

 then to their relations with the coal-owners and 

 capitalists, then to the great principles of morality 

 and happiness, and at last to their relation to God, 

 and their own future prospects. . . / 



Murchison, writing of the meeting at Glasgow 

 in 1840, recalls ' the glorious day at Arran, when I 

 lectured to a good band of workmen, with every 

 peak of Goatfell illumined, and marched up at close 

 of the day to Brodrick Castle, with the Heir of the 

 House of Douglas, preceded by the piper.' x 



Again, at the Manchester meeting in 1842, we 

 find Sedgwick 2 at an Association dinner describing ' a 

 walk he had taken through the streets of Manchester, 

 amidst the smoke of chimneys and the roar of 

 engines ; ' and then he came to speak of the 

 artisans : 



' In talking to men whose brows were smeared 

 V with dirt, and whose hands were black with soot, I 

 found upon them the marks of intellectual minds, 

 and the proofs of high character ; and I conversed 

 with men who, in their own way, and in many ways 

 bearing upon the purposes of life, were far my 



1 Memoirs, i, 303. 2 Life and Letters, ii, 46. 



