Now we are taken to the chapel in which Mr. Gallaudet officiates among them.  On the desk is an elegantly-bound Bible, which has been presented by a former patient, who had experienced in his restoration the value of this “Retreat.”  The hymn-book is a collection made on purpose for the insane, everything gloomy and terrific being excluded.  Mr. Gallaudet, a most intelligent and accomplished man, describes many remarkable developments of human nature which have come under his observation, comprising strange combinations of piety and profanity in the same persons.  A patient, who was really a very religious man, in enumerating the many advantages they there enjoyed said, “We have a good house to live in; good rooms to occupy; good food to eat; a good doctor to attend us; a good chaplain to give us religious instruction; and” (waxing warm) “what the devil do we want more?”

In the afternoon we meet with Dr. Hawes, at the house of Chief Justice Williams to tea.

In the evening there is a united service in the “Fourth Church”—­that of which Dr. Patton’s son is minister,—­to hear from me an address on the subject of missions.  After which Dr. Bushnell puts to me publicly some very close and intelligent questions with regard to the working of freedom in our West India Colonies.  He is evidently anxious to elicit from me that kind of information which would enable them to contradict the statements of the pro-slavery party.  Young Patton is also an anti-slavery man, and will not tolerate the distinction of colour in his own church.

The next day Mr. Gallaudet and Mr. Patton call and accompany us to the Historical Room.  There we see carefully kept an old chest that had come over in the “May Flower,” and also the three-legged pot in which the “Pilgrims” had first boiled their food after landing on Plymouth Rock.  These and many other memorials of the “Fathers” we are happy to find are very piously preserved.  Then we go to a Gallery of Pictures.  The admission fee is 25 cents, or one shilling; but from us, being strangers, they will accept of nothing!  In the collection there was much to admire; but I could not help regretting that the canvas was made to preserve the memory of so many conflicts between England and her Transatlantic sons.

We dined at Dr. Bushnell’s house.  The Doctor is a very unassuming man, and a very original but somewhat eccentric thinker.  He had lately published a sermon on Roads, a sermon on the Moral Uses of the Sea, a sermon on Stormy Sabbaths, and a sermon on Unconscious Influence,—­all treated in a very striking manner.  He had recently visited England and the continent of Europe, and had also contributed an article to the New Englander, a quarterly review, on the Evangelical Alliance.  The views of a keen thinker from another land on that and kindred topics deserve to be pondered.  “The Church of God in England,” says the Doctor, “can never be settled upon any proper basis,