Some regard it as a weakness, as a folly, but I am sure that it exists most strongly in some of the noblest of our race; that from the lips of those who have done most in lifting the burden of ignorance from the overstrained and bowed shoulders of a stumbling world has gone out most often into the empty darkness the pleading, impassioned cry: "Give light!" The light may come with a blinding flash, but it is light none the less, and we can see.
And now the time had come when I was to use that gift of speech which I had discovered in Sibsey Church that I possessed, and to use it to move hearts and brains all over the English land.

In 1874, tentatively, and in 1875 definitely, I took up this keen weapon, and have used it ever since.

My first attempt was at a garden party, in a brief informal debate, and I found that words came readily and smoothly: the second in a discussion at the Liberal Social Union on the opening of museums and art galleries on Sunday.

My first lecture was given at the Co-operative Institute, 55, Castle Street, Oxford Street, on August 25, 1874.

Mr.Greening--then, I think, the secretary--had invited me to read a paper before the society, and had left me the choice of the subject.