" It was an
occasion never to be forgotten. A distinguished hearer said: "To read
his speech, as thousands will, is much; but to have heard it, to have
felt it-oh! that is simply indescribable, and will mark for many, one of
the most memorable days of this last decade of this closing century.
The sweet cadence of his voice, the fascination of his personality, and,
above all, the consecration of his splendid gifts to the cause of
plundered men and ravished women, raise the occasion into prominence in
the annals of a great people. Chiefly, I feel the triumphs of soul. His
utterance of the words 'wives,' 'women,' lifted them into an atmosphere
of awe and solemnity, and his tone in speaking of 'rape' and 'torture'
gave them an ineffable loathsomeness. It seemed as if so much soul had
never been put into a Saxon speech. Keen satire, rasping rebuke, an
avalanche of indignation, rapier-like thrusts to the vital fibre of the
situation, and withal the invincible cogency of argument against the
Turkish Government, gave the oration a primary place amongst the
master-pieces of human eloquence."
In the course of this famous speech Mr. Gladstone referred to America;
once when welcoming the sympathy of the American people with the
suffering Armenians, and again as he described the testimony of the
United States as a witness that gained enormously in value because it
was entirely free from suspicion.
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