James Burrill Angell

“ The minister came to London, told the story, and persuaded men to found the society.
I went one morning at 8 o'clock to breakfast with the directors of the Tract Society at their rooms in Paternoster Row. These directors, busy men, fifteen in number, meet every Tuesday morning at that early hour for breakfast and the transaction of the business of the society. They were criticizing tracts which they had all carefully read. Here, as at the meeting of the directors of the Bible Society, I was deeply impressed by the fidelity of these officers of the societies in the discharge of their duties. ”

“ His answer was that the charm lies in the fact that there one sees so much life. "In Paris," he remarked, "one finds clever men within their limits. Here one sees more of many men and of very marked character."
Though in both visits I was in London only six weeks, and in midsummer, and in no official capacity, I met or heard discourses from a good number of interesting men. This was in part due to the fact that the American Minister, Edward J. Phelps, and his wife were intimate friends of my wife and myself and were in London in 1886. ”

“ Hazard and I made a visit to the Continent after the close of the Council in London. We spent some days in Brussels, where Mr. Hazard had import-ant business relations. I asked prominent men there why Belgium, a neutralized country, charged itself with the expense of an army of a hundred thousand men. Their answer was that the Great Powers virtually require it to prevent any state from taking advantage of a defenceless condition, and furthermore, the officers drawn from the higher classes have influence enough in the government to maintain an effective force. ”