The most significant and important outcome of this
presentation to the Czar was his pledge to my countrymen
that Russia would always remember the generosity of
the American people in their future relations.
Everywhere in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the Russian
and American flags were displayed together on the
public buildings, so that I look back upon this occasion
with a pardonable impression of its international
importance. There was a suggestion of this feeling
in an address presented to us by the City Council
of St. Petersburg, in which a graceful remembrance
was made of that occasion in 1868, when a special
embassy from the United States, with Mr. G.V.
Fox, a Cabinet officer, at its head, visited St. Petersburg
and expressed sympathy for Russia and its Sovereign.
Returning from Russia, I continued my preaching tour
in England, preaching to immense crowds, estimated
in the English newspapers to be from fifteen to twenty
thousand people, in the large cities. In Birmingham
the crowd followed me into the hotel, where it was
necessary to lock the doors to keep them out.
What incalculable kindness I received in England!
I remember a farewell banquet given me at the Crystal
Palace by twenty Nonconformists, at which I was presented
with a gold watch from my English friends; and a scene
in Swansea, when, after my sermon, they sang Welsh
hymns to me in their native language.
Some people wonder how I have kept in such good humour
with the world when I have been at times violently
assailed or grossly misrepresented. It was because
the kindnesses towards me have predominated. For
the past thirty or forty years the mercies have carried
the day. If I went to the depot there was a carriage
to meet me. If I tarried at the hotel some one
mysteriously paid the bill. If I were attacked
in newspaper or church court there were always those
willing to take up for me the cudgels. If I were
falsified the lie somehow turned out to my advantage.
My enemies have helped me quite as much as my friends.
If I preached or lectured I always had a crowd.
If I had a boil it was almost always in a comfortable
place. If my church burned down I got a better
one. I offered a manuscript to a magazine, hoping
to get for it forty dollars, which I much needed at
the time. The manuscript was courteously returned
as not being available; but that article for which
I could not get forty dollars has since, in other
uses, brought me forty thousand dollars. The
caricaturists have sent multitudes of people to hear
me preach and lecture. I have had antagonists;
but if any man of my day has had more warm personal
friends I do not know his name.
THE SIXTEENTH MILESTONE
1892-1895
I had only one fault to find with the world in my
sixty years of travel over it and that was it had
treated me too well. In the ordinary course of
events, and by the law of the Psalmist, I still had
ten more years before me; but, according to my own
calculations, life stretched brilliantly ahead of
me as far as heart and mind could wish. There
were many things to take into consideration.
There was the purpose of the future, its obligations,
its opportunities to adjust. My whole life had
been a series of questions. My course had been
the issue of problems, a choice of many ways.
