Letters During His First Visit to Europe, 1851

OFF CAPE CLEAR, June 3, 185 1.

THROUGH God’s mercy I am here on the Irish coast, in our eleventh day. It has been a perpetual delight, without accident, hinderance, or “evil occurrent;” without pain, alarm, sea-sickness, languor, low spirits, or weariness; with as delightful a company as ever was thrown together, with sumptuous entertainment in a floating palace. Will you believe it — our 141 passengers have been like a loving family. Since the 25th wre have had solemn and delightful worship every night, and services both Sabbaths. On each I preached once. I suppose we sang forty complete hymns on Sunday night. Mr. Tupper and Dr. Miitter2 have won my everlasting thanks and regard for the bold and noble manner in which they came out for religion. Tupper sets the tune at worship.

All my anticipations of the Atlantic have thus far been more than realized. I have seen a whale and a paper-nautilus, and several icebergs. The ship-people =140, of whom seventy are connected with the steam. We burn seventy tons of coal a day, and sixteen men are employed feeding our fourteen furnaces.

1 Dr. Alexander embarked in the steamer Arctic, Captain Luce, at Nevr York, on the 24th May, 1851. In filling up this chapter I have not been limited to the letters addressed to myself, but have also had the use of those addressed to different members of his family. It was indeed the plan of his correspondence, that what he wrote to one of his friends should be circulated among the rest, and then collected as the journal of his tour. Several other letters were addressed by him, during his journey, to the editors of “The Presbyterian,” Philadelphia. I should add that what is given in this chapter is but a meagre selection from the materials.

2 Mr. Martin F. Tupper, author of u Proverbial Philosophy,” and the late Professor Miitter, of the Jefferson Medical School of Philadelphia.

Think of its being daylight here at 2 A. M.! On the banljs of Newfoundland we had fire, and slept under full winter covering. Mr. Tupper is the most merry, open-hearted creature in the world, and fraught with classical learning. I have his autograph of his own proverb: “A babe in the house is a well-spring of happiness.”

June 4. — I just now had the first glimpse of Britain; it is Bardsey Island, in Caernarvon. Beautiful clearness of atmosphere. The blue sea has become green in soundings, but we have the gray heaven of England and not an American azure.

I have had frequent opportunities of religious exhortation, and was never more blessed, than on this voyage, with willing ears. I am sorry to say my health was publicly drunk at the closing dinner on board, “for his services as chaplain.” Tupper made a speech, and various poems were recited.

LIVERPOOL, June 4, 1851.

My first step in England! We were half a day getting through the customs. They even dutied my sermons. The weather is smoky, muggy, and cold, about like our March, with out any keenness. For the first time I see beautiful hawthorn blooms, both white and red. Liverpool buildings are high, solid, massive, every thing on a scale of majestic strength, without beauty.

On the 6th we go up to London with Dr. Mutter, who has been several times abroad, and is acquainted with several of the chief nobility and clergy. Mr. Tupper has given me some valuable letters, and offers to present me to the Presbyterian Duke of Argyll. The beauty of the rural environs surpasses all my imagination. Every charm of verdure, birds, flowers, and luxurious landscape-gardening, appears in this spring-like weather. Americans meet us, almost literally, at every corner. I suppose we have fifty in this house, (Adelphi.)

LONDON, June 6, 1851.

The season is transcendent. How can I ever describe the fairy-land we have come through this day! I had fancied much, but it is nothing to the reality. Green, green, green! Such green as I never thought of, bathed in an atmosphere of delicious moisture, a playful mixture of tiny rains and sunshine. Castles, parks, hedgerows, rivers, Trent and Avon, Cowper’s birthplace and scenes, cottages, rookeries, larks. Some parts of Warwick, Herts, and Nottingham, with the approaches by Harrow, are like one’s dreams of Eden. We were ten in party, all friends, Americans; and all day no foot entered our (railway) carriage but our own. The order, the ease, the respectfulness are marvellous. I have not in several days seen a moment of hurry.

The climate is wet but lovely. You can walk all day. The sun seems to be under a fender. I have walked miles to-day in my great coat, and been in half a dozen rains; but the rain seems to be playing, and sometimes stops before you raise an umbrella.

LONDON, June 8, 1851.

Where should a man go on Whitsunday but to St. Paul’s 1 I fancy half the auditory was American. The nave is boxed up for approaching fete of charity children. Service in the choir. Every thing chanted. I place it clearly at the top of all music I ever heard. The voice of the bassos and of the trained boys, the organ, the modulation, and the universal enunciation, surpass my highest dream of church-music. Milman preached. Large parts of antiphonal song from invisibles in loft. I could not, by search, see one man or boy among the surplices who listened to one word of the sermon. After singing like angels (I never heard such voices) the dogs would sit in their high oaken stalls, and play all manner of pranks.

For an omnibus had to go down to Bank. My heart went pit-a-pat at the corner-names: Bread street, Poultry, Cornhill, St. Swithin’s, Eastcheap. Chat with six policemen, seventeen yesterday; all the same — polite, even benignant; 4,000 now in London. I have never failed to say I was American. Effect all the same — overflowing kindness, with abject ignorance of the United States. Birds sing by hundreds in these parks. One is always near a friendly guide in the police. They never tire, and especially aid foreigners. The placards show a great prevalence of religious affairs. Sermons advertised in all languages. Old London rises before me, where I see the Tower, Billingsgate, Lambeth, Old Jewry, and Upper Thames street. I love to lose myself in the culs-de-sac and inn-yards opening in Cheapside and Aldersgate street.

Our hotel (Euston) is at the terminus of the North- Western Railway. There are indeed two of them, quite alike, with a place between them. No bar. Large coffee-rooms, columns, curtains, head-waiter like a clergyman, speaks French and Spanish; no loud syllable spoken; tables far apart. Sparrows numerous in our court, which is clean as a parlour. 1 heard Dr. Hamilton at 6^ P. M. Mean, large church. Like every minister here, he has trimmed whiskers. Gown and band.

Subject: Eternity of hell-torments. Able, faithful, tender, original, and not flowing. Voice gentle, but intonation positively shocking. No gesture but with head and body. Voice dropped on every cadence, several notes lower than the expected one, with an effect that is horrible. Deep solemnity in people, as much as in any revival. Precentor. All sing, but hideously. People all sit down a minute after blessing, which is delightful. Alms at the door.

Nothing so amazes me as the order of the streets. Even by the river-stairs and in Southwark, no fuss, no groups of b’hoys, nothing like loud laughter. Indeed the policemen, with their handsome uniform, are everywhere; as grave as clergymen, and constantly helping some one. Around the Crystal Palace for some squares, no one is allowed to stop and chat, but the notice is given thus: “Excuse me, Sir; I have indulged you as long as my orders allow; you will find it agreeable to walk on.” Common people all say cowld for cold. Everybody says ‘ouse, believin, and ‘bus. If you want a cabman you hollow Tceb I In Liverpool I had my watch, once my father’s, set to English time at the shop where it was made, as the number (6,900) showed, in 1804; they now number 59,000 and odd. Everybody expresses assent by “quite so,” and no sentence seems complete without “you know,” (naow.) All words like “member,” “waiter” are almost spondees, “waitarr.” “Hear” and “year” are “hyurr” and “yurr.” The favourite drink is ‘alf-and-’alf, or ale and porter. The bell is always answered by a chambermaid, a comely person in a cap.

On the 7th I was in Westminster, and surveyed the courts of law. In Chancery, Lord Truro, sniffing camphor or the like, as if sick. In Vice Chancellor’s court, Sir J. Knight Bruce sitting. In Queen’s Bench, Lord Campbell, Sir J. T. Coleridge, &c. Lawyers crowded in pews, like people in church. The wigs looked like making fun. The gown and band were becoming. The queues of the barristers’ wigs like floured rat-tails.

LONDON, 142 STRAND; June 10, 1851.

This is in Old London, the only London that I care for. I have had a couple of good days, one at Greenwich Fair and hospital, and one at Windsor and Eton. My whole day-light I spend, rain or shine, (mostly rain,) on the tops of omnibuses. In my opinion a lady might journey all over rail-road-England, with as much safety as she could go from Trenton to Princeton. In the carriages all is exactly as if you were in your private coach. No passing through. No outcry; the whole mien that of genteel, deferential servants.

I attended the Crystal Palace Exhibition for the first time to day. I was chiefly attracted by the Fine Art department. The sculptures are innumerable. The only ones which greatly impressed me, were Italian, but placed, alas! under the sign of “Austria.” A number of fine ladies, perhaps noble, were trying to lift a little boy up to see the great diamond. I gave my place and offered to hold him. The lady looked surprised — such things are not done here — but when I said “I have such another 3,000 miles from here,” she complied and thanked me with much grace. No respect is shown to sex. No one gives place to a lady as such. There is great respect, however, to every one in public, for they do not know but the man in plain dress is a lord. The beautiful skin and teeth of all classes, except artisans, keeps me admiring. The gray hair, even of quite young ladies, is universally exposed. It strikes you, when you see it repeated among ten thousand. Whitsun holidays have brought the provincials in by shoals. You would laugh to see vans, or long and wide cars, crammed full of rosy lads and lasses, perhaps thirty in one, riding twenty and thirty miles for sixpence. My Virginia friends agree that they never saw such horses as came up to London. They are like elephants in the brewers’ drays. I understand better now what Dickens and the Earl of Carlisle mean by calling the Americans a grave people. At these fetes of Whitsun-week the whole bourgeoisie seem to be pleasuring, all on a broad grin, all gratified, and without strong drink or any rowdyism. Nurses and young mothers, with little children, go seven miles by water, and stay all day amidst thousands. Every time I lift my eyes from this paper, I see St. Paul’s. I blame myself for contemning St. Paul’s. How gloriously it pre dominates over every /part of the city! Temple Bar and Char ing Cross are pleasantly near. I have seen the paintings at Hampton. You know my peculiarity as to portraits; but these are the men themselves, as they lived and moved. Corregio’s enchanted me more than any before I knew they were his. The very clocks and furniture of 1536 are at Hampton. The horse guards passed me to barracks, in Hyde Park, in the rain, cloaked, and each leading a second horse. There are always two regiments on duty, picked men, six feet high. They are just as polite as the police. Every common man I have talked with, wishes to go to America. The last cad that took my sixpence asked me “is not New York in Philadelphia 1” Another, when I said I was a foreigner, said: “Ay! you must be talkin’ hyper bolical. I suppose you know the meaning of the word; you may be a furriner to London, but you’re an Englishman born.”

Windsor Castle covers thirty-two acres. The park (see

Midsummer Night’s Dream) looks endless. Green, green, green, velvet, emerald, no break in the verdure — a prairie covered with trees, such as you have often heard described. One broad avenue of oaks and elms reaches three miles. My first rapture in a Gothic edifice was in St. George’s Chapel. All words must fail to express its awful beauty; no gloom, no sombre colours, all bright from the cream-coloured stone columns and arches, rising into vaults of fearful grace. In the church is the group of statu ary forming a monument to the Princess Charlotte. The grief expressed by the veiled, prostrate, dishevelled creatures, makes me shudder when I recall it.

I next went across to Eton. These little old towns are indescribable. High street is a place to dream of. Nobody ever told me how pure and clear and wide the streets were, nor how low were the houses, nor how nice, quaint, cheerful, and roguishlooking. Some breathe the very spirit of Chaucer. Then the College! 1 cannot express how my musings went back, in those cloisters. The trees, the pavements, the Master’s (Hawtrey’s) house, with comical gables peeping out of the deep green; the boats in great numbers on the sweet narrow Thames, rowed by the boys, the cricketers with gowns and coats thrown off.

England is a more flowery country than I thought. The roadsides are besprinkled with endless bloom, often as much so as any garden walk. The green is so dense that girls at work in fields sometimes seem as if in waves of a river. Ancient footpaths wind far away where there is no high road, grdfvelled and even paved.

LONDON, June 13, 1851.

Last night I went to the House of- Commons, and heard Cobderf, Hume, Baring, Admiral Berkeley, &c. All spoke alike: all had a stammer, save Cobden; all colloquial, rapid and sometimes funny. The noise was tremendous. I had no notion before of the ironical cheers, which are a yaw-yawing you would hardly distinguish from dogs. I am not desirous to go again.

After all my study of the localities, I can hardly believe my eyes. Such dark, dim, tall, narrow, winding ways — plainly just so for ages. Here is Watling street, part of an old Celtic road all across Britain. The places are redolent «of Saxon times. Buy Cock Robin at Newberry’s Corner. Newberry has been dead sixty years. Peep into yards of old inns. Heavy carts of country carriers and broad dialect. I pushed into Doctors’ Commons, and had a dozen touching their hats and offering to find a proctor for me, to show me the cells of the wills, &c.

Serjeant’s Inn is another close. But the most awakening is the Temple, Middle and Inner, which surprises me by its insulation, retirement, and sweetness. Templars here in 1184!

June 14. — [After visiting Covent Garden market, St. James’ Park, hearing the Queen’s band, and seeing the Queen and Prince Albert pass, he spent the rest of the day at the Crystal Palace.] I was about to retire at 4, when I saw the Duke of Wellington. Exceedingly trim in dress, new hat, white stock with broad silver buckle.” No greatcoat. A handsome woman was on his arm — wife of one of the Commissioners. The crowd stood off with peculiar delicacy. The Duke turned into the American department, and stood half an hour, within six feet of me, listening to a detailed description of Day and Newell’s (New York) lock. He gave fixed attention, and asked some questions. He is evidently the idol of the people.

I have three tickets to a Conversazione on the 16th, signed by the archdeacon of Middlesex, “to afford foreign pastors, and other religious foreigners, opportunity to become acquainted with the clergy and such lay members of the Church of England, as take a special interest in its affairs.”

I had my shoes blacked in the Park for one penny, by a boy in a blouse, marked “Ragged School Society of Shoeblacks, No. 35.”

You cannot think how deeply I was affected, when looking over the exhibition in the French department, to see at a type founder’s platform the Chinese types of the “Presbyterian Board of Missions,” especially as four of the Executive Committee are here this moment.2

June 16. — I found Dr. Hamilton at his house in Gower street, who received ac with indescribable cordiality. I am pained to think how few there are whom I have ever received with as much. He is a tall, thin, American-looking man, with the gentlest, sweetest, most innocent manners. He gave me the latest “Presbyterian,” which completes my news anent the Professorship, [in Princeton Seminary.] He gave me two books

for, with his autograph. Then he took me into the next

room, and introduced me to Dr. Sandberg, Professor of Church History at the University of Lund, in Sweden.

I then proceeded through a maze of streets to Carl ton Terrace. I found No. 9, and saw the arms of Prussia on the house of the Chevalier Bunsen, and entering found a number of persons waiting in the ante-chamber. The big-legged footman, in

1 The Duke died on that day fifteen months.

3 Dr. Jacobus, Mr. Lenox, Mr. Soutter, — I do not know who was the fourth.

blue and gold, took my card and instantly came back, taking me in precedence of all the rest. He received me in a long, lofty library -office, looking out on the corner of St. James’ Park. He is a noble-looking man, somewhat corpulent, with a blue eye, temperate but ruddy skin, and fine teeth. He took me as unceremoniously by the hand as you would have done, and led me rather gaily towards a sofa, seating himelf at one end. He began at once with great fluency, elegance, and heart, in excellent English. He had read a letter which I had placed in the hands of Mr. Kennedy, respecting German emigration. After hearing me on this topic, he entered on religious subjects, spoke of the iron extremes of Anglicanism, and of hymnology, and presented me with a copy of his own book of hymns and prayers, with this inscription, “To Rev. Dr. James W. Alexander, as a token of Christian regard. J. Bunsen. Carlton Terrace, 16 June, 1851.” He offered me letters to Germany, which I declined, begged me to come again, and kept me there till a German, apparently of rank, came in. I observed open at his standing desk a Greek copy of Origen. There is no trace of stiffness in his manner, and his reception of me was not only affable but loving. Tears stood in his eyes several times during our interview. I suppose he felt that he could entirely unbend with a foreign Christian.

Going at random into Westminster Abbey, I found the Bishop of London preaching before the famous old Society for Propagating the Gospel. Among the first words I heard were, “the United States of America.” It has been so everywhere. Our republic seems to be perpetually in the mind of England. I went a second time to Westminster Hall. The speeches are eminently condensed, scholarly, and colloquial; more of a dialogue than any thing known among us. The barrister or solicitor is not allowed to deviate an instant. All the English speak alike, and almost all affect a stammer which gives an odd emphasis. On my return 1 looked in at the old Savoy church, with respectful remembrance.

I am now convinced that I must leave this most noble of cities, not only unlearnt, but unvisited in a score of most important places. I could this minute name thirty which it would take a week barely to go to.

1 It was about this time that Mr. Bunsen was preparing his Letters to Archdeacon Hare on Hippolytus, author of the recently discovered book ascribed to Origen. The first volume of his large work on Hippolytus did not appear till 1853.

PARIS, June 19, 1851.

We left London at 9|- this morning, and here we are (at midnight) in Paris, after a journey of 345 miles. Feel the climate to be like that of America; it is from winter to summer. The delightfulness of seeing the sun and feeling the warmth is indescribable. The ride through Picardy is flat and monotonous, but verdant, cultivated, and delightful. Sometimes thirty windmills at once. No fences, few hedges, many ditches. All roads and ditches lined with pollard trees. Almost always in sight of a Norman church predominating over the flat but cosy hamlet. I never saw any thing more lovely than the groups of villagers in the summer evening. Immense herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. Our way was through forty-six towns and villages.

21 sL — Hotel Meurice. Right across is the Garden of the Tuileries. The shade is beyond all I ever dreamt of: it is almost like night. There is not a blade of grass, but the ground is baked and trodden hard. Children in any quantity in the garden, with their bonnes; not so chubby and cherubic as the English, of whom also there are many. I saw 30,000 men reviewed by the President [now Emperor] in the Champ de Mars. I was in an open caleche, with Mr. R. L. Stuart. Louis is not great-looking, but modest and soldierly, and u un bon cava her,” as our driver said again and again. Jerome was on his left. The troops of Paris are 100,000. There were 180 drums. The soldiers singly look mean, but in mass are incomparably fine. We drove back along the quays, and so across by the Elysees and Place de la Concorde. This is probably unequalled on earth. On one side the Madeleine, on the other the Chamber of Deputies. There is no longer any aristocratic wealth in France. One-quarter of an hour in Hyde Park reveals more grandeur than all France can show. The women of Paris are the ugliest and the prettiest I ever saw. The general impression on me is, that England is the cleanest and France the dirtiest nation in the world.

June 22. — Lord’s Day, but no Sabbath in Paris. They were painting this very house, and tearing down buildings not far off. All the shops are open. It is a great Romish feast, the Fete-Dieu. As time allowed, I went into the church of St. Mary of Loretto before Protestant service. It was full, each paying two sous for a chair.. High mass. Various bands of singers, boys and men. Processions round and round with the host. Perhaps fifty priests, arrayed in purple and gold. Two beautiful young priests, in graceful white robes, with pink sashes, carried the censers. Four little children, in same apparel, scattered rose-leaves. Twenty -four novices, girls, all in white, veiled, carried candles six feet high. An orchestra of perhaps fifty instruments on the north side of the choir, the leader making all the motions, just as in a theatre. The pyramidal band of priests at the high-altar, moved and changed and turned and parted with all the complication, but with all the regularity of a cotillon. The Gregorian chant by voices like Russell’s, [deep bass,] all like one voice. I never in all my life felt such grief and indignation at the “man of sin.” Architecture, painting, and music, here combine in their highest point to make Christ’s cross nothing but a stupendous plaything. The hundreds of tapers, and the indescribable gorgeousness of the chasubles, &c., and the wailing, soul-entrancing music, all belong to the wine of incantation of the scarlet woman. May God destroy this Babylon with the brightness of his coming!

Thence to the Oratoire. I hoped to hear Mr. Adolphe Monod, but found Mr. Coquerel in the pulpit. He is an eloquent Socinian, and a fine-looking man. Text: “Who gave himself for us.” Doctrine: Unity of belief is impossible; unity of morals is what Christ died for. He is a consummate orator. No notes. Large, respectable assembly. They sang the old Beza-Marot psalms to the old tunes. People all stood most reverently during prayer.

June 23. — To the National Assembly. Saw Lamartine, Cavaignac, Coquerel, Leroux, Berryer, Odillon Barrat, Girardin, Lamennais, and some others. I never heard such a noise. A hundred would be talking as loud as the orator. Coming away I joined company with a priest. Told him I was a Protestant. He said, “N’importe, monsieur, vous etes Chretien.” He was polite, as every one is. No one enters a cafe or an omnibus without salutation.

June 24. — One month from home. It seems a year, but a year of delight. For the first time I can say my cold is better. Soldiers have now become as familiar as flies. Paris is more like an American city than London. It is filthy and has abominable stenches. But there are thousands of flowers and birds here, which cannot be said of any American city. O what a meeting, Sunday evening, in the little chapel Oratoire! Adolphe Monod — “God is Love.” Huguenot women in caps. Old Psalm (103d) — old tunes. It was an hour to be remembered for life.

Mr. Eives gave me a distinguished reception, called in person, and has written me two notes, and given me entrance to the diplomatic box at the National Assembly. Tea at Dr. Monod’s, with Bridel, and several others. Good Christian evening. I conducted prayers and expounded. I had previouslyspent an hour with Adolphe Monod. We ran together like two drops. I am to be at his soiree on 26th, where perhaps I meet Lady Trotter, sister of the Marchioness Normanby. All ranks of evangelical people meet here like brothers. All ranks are equally polite. I never hear or see any thing in the streets which would be rude in our parlour. The persuasive, deferential, affectionate tone of their voices, especially the women, is surprising. But every one dreads an outbreak, and then they be come tigers. Such flowers and fruits I never beheld. The flower-market near Madeleine, beats Covent Garden hollow. The poorest, meanest things in Paris, are arranged with taste. A fruit-window is a perfect still-life picture. A half sous stick of cherries is pretty enough to take home. You must imagine what it must be when they lay themselves out to be ornamental. June 27. — My days are spent in rambling,: for the things I want to see differ from the common sights. I have been in the principal churches, have heard masses enough to keep my soul in repose (if they have any such virtue) a thousand years, have seen paintings till 1 weary of them, have sought out the burialplaces of some great men, some Protestant antiquities not commonly visited, and have learned to hate Popery more intensely than ever. At two soirees I have good opportunity to scan the customs of Parisian Christians. I have never seen any thing more simply elegant or affectionate. In both instances we had prayers, before tea. Last evening a company of about thirty united in singing a hymn, hearing chapter, and offering a prayer — all in French. I have passed much time in the Pays Latin, or region of the old colleges and convents, and in rummaging the antiquities of Paris. When I plunge into the oldest, narrowest streets, &c., of the Seine, I have most that attracts me. My uniform method is to hire a coupe and sit with the driver. This teaches me more French than a week of solitary walking. Then I make an excuse to sit half an hour in some cool shop and chat in my bad French with the smooth-tongued Parisians. I have to-day visited with great curiosity the markets which had escaped me. Strawberries as large as English walnuts are abundant for money. Both in England and Paris the most beautiful buttei is universally set before us in pats about as large as two dollars laid together. No spot has attracted me so much as the Louvre. If it were Christian so to do I could spend hours there daily for a year. Yet I do not enjoy Paris as much as London. One I admire, the other I love. Except their poor, ignorant nonsense about slavery, I saw hardly any thing in England which I did not like.

1851. U5

PARIS, June 30, 1851.

Yesterday was the Lord’s day, the octave of Fete Dieu, (Corpus Christi,) a day specially devoted to the, idolatry of the wafer. I felt it my duty to go to the Madeleine before worship. How can I make you conceive the worldly grandeur and beauty! It is the greatest of modern churches. It is more beautiful outside than St. Peter’s. Conceive of a Greek temple of massy marble: images on images by the greatest sculptors, many times as large as life, all outside. Hangings of velvet, purple, and gold between the columns. Ancient tapestries hung outside the walls, within the vast pillars. Inside, the smell of millions of flowers. It is called the fete des fleurs. If I saw one bouquet I saw ten thousand. You cannot imagine the art in their disposition. The high altar was so backed by a forest of flowers, that the singers were perfectly concealed. Scores of priests, deacons, boys in graceful albs with pink girdles; scores of girls all veiled, all white for their first communion., as they went in procession, and carried a rich bouquet. The nuns and girls had bouquets wholly of lilies and other white buds of flowers. The music was such as I am sure I shall never hear the like of in this world. The vast area within was filled with people.

From this I went to the poor little English Wesleyan chapel. About one hundred and fifty: about seventeen men: generally servants and governesses of English residents and visitors. Ser mon by Dr. Ritchie, a Wesleyan of Canada. Good sermon on “Behold the Lamb.” The application of it was such gospel, gospel, gospel, that I laid my head down and almost dissolved. These things which are daily bread in blessed America, are here like God’s manna. The beauty, the grace, the extent, the glory of these illuminated forests, these spacious places, these statues, buildings, orderly crowds, this music — a hundred orchestras and concerts every night in open air — these things pass description, and steal the soul of the people from God. Since the cities of the plain, vice has never had such blandishment. Most, even of religious Americans, forget all restraint. Not that I have seen drunkenness or heard one profane word. All is courtesy and I bienseance. The common people have a grace which reproves me every instant. Around a puppet-show or dancing dogs, the folk in blouses are so polite and still; they do not even rub against you without a “Pardon, monsieur,” the tone of which is more than the words. But they are Godless, and at one rap of the drum (especially jujt now) are ready to become simiotigres.

Mr. Walsh has gone out to St. Germain-en-Laze. He sent me a mofct warm and characteristic letter, mistaking me for Addison, and went to the Director of the National (once Royal)

Library, and requested that I might be introduced to the principal Orientalists of Paris.

All the time I write I hear from the large courts a perpetual sound of French chat among the servants, with that Parisian tune to the words which no foreigner can ever obtain, but which is so cunning and musical and insinuating, as to reconcile me to the sound of French.

Mr. A. Monod is the most remarkable mixture of sweetness with intense solemnity I ever saw. Three months ago his mother died leaving twelve living sons. All the connexion seem to be in the fear of the Lord.

PARIS, July 3, 1851*

My first opening of the lips was last evening at the Wesley an Chapel. Though it rained I suppose a hundred and fifty were out. Spies of this free government are always there. One of the most interesting of all my hours abroad I had yesterday morning with 1’Abbe de Moligny. Mr. Walsh gave me a note to the Abbe evidently as a specimen of the most cultivated French clergyman. Every thing in his apartments was in the highest bachelor taste, like a boudoir. He was all attention and cleverness; showed me specimens of binding; offered to take me to his bookseller and buy for me, which he could do to advantage. He alluded several times to my being a Protestant with much gracefulness and sobriety. We talked of German emigration and of politics.

I greatly wished to see a religious house, and the greatest Romish theological seminary of France; both coincide in St. Sulpice. Mr. Walsh gave me a note to Dr. L. R. Delual at the Seminary, and sent me a kind letter inviting me to-day. The Seminary has about three hundred religious, of whom a hundred and fifty are students. I was conducted to the room of Father Delual in the third story. He began to talk rapidly in English, and did so for three hours. He soon told me he had lived thirty-two years in Baltimore, and was twenty years President of St. Mary’s College. He knew much ,about Princeton, Dr. Miller, my father, and Addison. He had a vivid recollection of meeting Dr. Hodge on the Delaware when he was accompanying the archbishop of Baltimore to embark for Rome. There are nearly twenty other Sulpitian seminaries in France, all affiliated under this. I was placed in rapport with a number of students in different parts of the cloisters, and of a beautiful and spacious terraced garden within the wall. I visited the small lecture-rooms, which are plain but full of pictures. There is a series in uil of all the Popes, as he said, “from St. Peter to Pio Nono.”

I saw numerous younger students carrying light desks on their heads to the recitations. They study in their cells. They look unhealthy and meager. The refectory is divided into two parts; to the right go the valid ones, to the left the invalid. The covers for the latter must have been thirty. Each, as he enters the dividing passage, takes from a great pannier as much bread, wheat, or rye as he needs. Each has his half bottle of vin ordi naire at each meal. The fragments are dispersed to the poor at a side-gate. The garden is full of trees, gravelled and beautiful, with covered sheds. The old man joked paternally with those he met. He pointed out two who had been “Presbyterian ministers in Scotland.” He encircled us in his arms, saying, “All three Presbyterians.” I replied, “My reception here is too courteous for me to engage in controversy.” One of the two said to me, “We must pray for you at Notre Dame des Victoires” I have no belief that either of the two was ever a minister. We went into the chapel. It is a beautiful building, the whole area being clear. Oaken stalls in two rows along the walls accommodate the worshippers. They never fairly sit except during the epistle; the rest of the time they either kneel, or (turning the thick oaken seat up by a hinge) rest on a ledge which is called a misericorde. There are seven large paintings, some very fine, by Lebrun. One of the Scots had a little Latin Testament in his hand, and was going to the “Scripture lesson.” They are mostly young, with much appearance of austerity. Their courses of studies seem low, puerile, and generally memoriter. Dialectics and casuistry form the chief part. The surveillance and separation are perfect. All the youth have tonsure. Dr. Delual answered all my questions with great promptness, and constantly presented me as a Protestant and a Presbyterian. He talked much about revolutionary atheism, and said the days of Marat would return if the red-republicans gained power. He added, what I believe, that there is a great revival of ceremony and massgoing, even among men. He is a very venerable and even elegant man, with a fresh complexion, and chirping merriment. He often quoted Latin, but never said any thing against Protestantism.

Yesterday I was at the College of France, and had several hours with the celebrated mathematician Biot, who intrusted me with several things for America. He is in his 80th year: yet I have some of his writing, done without spectacles, smaller and firmer than mine. He spoke of Peirce, Henry, Gould, Wilkcs, and Bache.

1 On the 10th July Dr. Alexander left Paris and reached Dijon that eveninsr. On the 12th to Geneva.

GENEVA, July 12, 1851.

All this day we have been in mountain-raptures; but when suddenly, through a near gap, the Alps burst on us, it was so different from any forethought of mine that I was relieved from swooning only by tears. I am thankful to say all my thought at the moment was of God, of Christ, and of heaven. Though a hundred miles off in many parts, they were clear as diamond. I was absolutely speechless. I had dreamed of vast dimensions, and of big mountains and chains, but this was mother-of-pearl, azure, agate, all colours, more solid than granite, and looking among the clouds, heavenly. We all sank under the religious impressions. The impression of death, heaven, and eternity is unavoidable. It has been a means of grace on the blessed, quiet Sabbath in the city of Bernard, Calvin, Farel, Vinet, Knox, Beza, and the Turretines. Yet around this lake lived Voltaire, Rousseau, and Gibbon. “The entrance of thy words giveth light.”

July 15. — On Sunday I went to the cool retreat of Dr. Malan’s chapel. Neat but plain: oaken pulpit and unpainted galleries. About thirty-five present. The Doctor preached; very short and affectionate. Two members, perhaps elders, were called on to pray. Afterwards I went to his house, and had a hearty, loving welcome.

This is the greatest day I could have in Geneva. The national shooting-match, the fir Federal, has been going on for ten days, and people from all the cantons, to the number of 30,000, have been here. The prizes = $37,000. The targets are by hundreds in a row. Every man who makes a good shot carries a card in his hat, and I have seen some with more than fifty. I never saw a more healthy, brave, honest, orderly people. But they are becoming corrupted by French infidel democracy.

We went to the St. Antoine quarter, where there are seats and walks, near the wire bridge, by the ramparts. We visited the Cathedral; a very old church, like St. Denis in some points. Here the Byzantine arch is seen growing into the early Gothic. The old stalls from before the Reformation remain, with figures of apostles and prophets in wood, and blazonry indicating the alliance between Geneva and Florence, as republics. The pulpit is modern, but the sounding-board is the same as when Calvin preached here; this was his favourite place.

The flora of the Alpine valleys is prodigious. The emerald hill-sides are a mosaic of hues more brilliant than any greenhouse. The air, or some luxuriance of growth, makes the grass and flowers appear brilliant beyond telling. Every great rock, on its warmer side, has a perfect garden of plants and flowers. The people are very loving. Every heifer and every goat is petted like a cat.

CHAMONIX, FOOT OF MONT BLANC, July IV, 1851 „ From the very point of leaving Geneva, there was one panorama of gardens and beauty; but as we came up and up nearer to the “monarch of mountains,” the views became so amazing and so unlike all ever seen before, that I felt almost in a new planet. You are sufficiently familiar with the description of such valleys as those through which we came. You have seen models of Swiss houses, but oh! you must magnify and roughen them; you must make them dark and smoky and filthy; you must turn stable and dwelling into one; you must people them with the most homely, rude, bundled creatures; you must cause to issue from them disfigured idiots, maimed and livid beggars, and objects with goitres from the size of an apple to the size of their own heads. I never beheld such an appearance of ill health, as in the lower valley of the Arne. When we began to rise yet higher at St. Martin, the people looked better, but still our carriage was beset with horrible lazars. Occasionally a fat priest might be seen. The women work like oxen, and have no trace of comeliness. The men are sometimes well-looking. Crosses and roadside chapels abound in the passes of the Alps. But “only man is vile.” These very objects, seen in a landscape a little way off, are picturesque in a high degree. To describe the valleys, heights, precipices, grottos, perpendicular rocks, and passages along edges or shelves, where heaven was darkened by the barrier of awful rock on one side, and the pit yawned on the other, is more than I. dare attempt. In one place a cannon was fired (by a woman) and its echoes were undistinguishable from severe thunder. Nothing more surprised me than the luxuriance of vegetation. You never saw, even in a favoured meadow, such green as clothes these depths and heights, from bottom to top, wherever any soil can stick. Even here, where I seem almost to touch Mt. Blanc, where its tremendous slope comes down to the very Arne, which sounds in my ears, as it rushes from masses of ice; where the weather demands greatcoats and fires; and where I see two glaciers and a world of snow above me on the South, and overhanging as if in reach, glistening in the sun, even here the pastures are indescribably rich. The velvet green goes up to the very fields of snow, and beyond it. This moment the echoes of bells on the home-coming cattle, are in my ears. The flowers are more numerous, beautiful, and fragrant than I ever saw at home. We have abundance of strawberries, cream which is almost too rich, and honey which is famous all over Europe. The Alp-horn was sounded for us and we listened to its echoes. I did not properly understand a glacier, before I same here. It is most like a mighty river, tossed into fury, and then turned to ice. Glaciers have a constant, though imperceptible motion. They look like frozen cataracts, coming down the hollows of the mountain-sides. They give origin to rivers. The air is very rare, cool, and clear, so that objects seem greatly nearer than the reality. The clouds, and fogs, and snows, which play fantastically about the mountains, keep the great peaks most of the time concealed; but enough is visible to make us adore Him “who setteth fast the mountains.”

COLOGNE, August 2, 185 1.

The revolutionary spirit [through Germany] connects itself with a hideous levelling jacobinism. I bless God, from my soul, that I am an American, and that America is a quiet land. The evils of over-population and iron prescription look incurable. Yet such labour, such lands, and such plenty, I never dreamed of. The amount of soil in vineyards shocks me. They could exist without wine. Yet I have never seen any one drinking mere water at table. Add coffee and tobacco, (now largely raised in Baden,) and the waste of soil and labour is alarming. Even yet every plough has a wheel, and very little horse or mule power is used. Indeed, women and children take their place. To-day I counted seven baskets on one woman’s head, and eight on another. At Heidelberg I saw two fine girls remove a load of cut wood on their heads, carrying almost a small wheel-barrow-full each time. Every inch of soil and every odd chance of labour are subsidized. Hedges, and even paths, are unknown in many parts, to save room; and along the crags of the Rhine some of the most famous vines are set in baskets, and dressed from suspended boards or ladders. You will often see a patch of wheat no larger than a bed-quilt; and, wherever the reapers have removed the sheaves, plowers and harrowers tread on their heels. Fields of poppies for oil. Fruits go from hereabouts to London, especially cherries. The great staple, how ever, is wine. The tip-top sorts reach none but princes. The common wines are in my humble opinion little better than rasp berry-vinegar, and for below their own beer. The Rhine-wines, which everybody drinks, are acid though lively, and require a training to endure. I confess, the peasantry look happy, dwell cosily, and enjoy a merriment unknown with us. The instances of personal and table filthiness, common in German inns, would nauseate you if described. At Basel, a German gentleman, at the table d’hote, dinner going on, cleaned his teeth with his

1 The places since Chamonix were Vevay, Lausanne, Lucerne, Zurich, (where he “could not find a man who had ever heard of Zuinglc, till I met aa American,”) Basel, Baden, Freiburg, Strasburg, Carlsruhe, Heidelberg.

brush, and spat into a glass. The female sex, generally, tends to a masculine coarseness. I have learned to prize an American woman. Of Cathedrals, I have now seen the greatest, Freiburg, Strasburg, and Cologne. Next to God’s works, no work has ever so amazed me. In the gorgeous temple, amidst painted windows and music that made me tremble and sink, my soul was oppressed at the heathenism to which Christianity is here reduced. And then to think what the Protestantism is, which is to oppose it! I deeply fear some judicial dealing with this whole continent. Unless Christ work some pentecostal miracle, where is the hope 1

The scenery of the Rhine was very beautiful, yet I felt how inferior in mere natural points it is to the Hudson. The vineyards, harvests, towns, and ruins, however, give it a character all its own.

STEAMBOAT “RUBENS,” ON THE RHINE, BETWEEN
COLOGNE AND AKNHEM, August 4, 1851.

There is nothing more curious here than the rapid change of languages. An hour ago, it was all German. Now, having got on a boat for Holland, it is all Dutch. When I came aboard, I really thought everybody was talking English, the sound is so different from the jaw-breaking German. The look is American. I write on deck at a mahogany table. A little forward is a company of six, three men and three young women. They have just had their lunch. So gentle, so home-like, so Protestantlooking, I am soothed and comforted after filthy, wicked Cologne. The river is just like the Delaware about Tacony. We are just passing Dusseldorf, which I am sorry to leave unseen. How glad 1 am I did not stop! Dr. E. Robinson just got on at D. You cannot understand my thankfulness: how my pent-up English rolled out in a flood! He is from Halle and Berlin, and goes with me to Holland.

The Rhine-wine is cheap here. The true Johannisberger is produced by one vineyard only, which belongs to Metternich, and which I saw. The people all drink wine, and always dilute it. Undiluted it is weaker than cider, and just the colour.

Utrecht, 9g- P. M. — In Holland my first landing was at Arnhem, then hither by rails. I longed for English cleanliness, but Dutch is more marvellous. It seems as if dirt could not stick. Entered this Venice-like city by moonlight. It is the poetry of niceness. The canals are shadowy with trees. The best idea I can give, is to refer to old Philadelphia half a century ago. Nothing in England so resembles it. The squat houses, gables, glazed brick, trim doorways, shade, absence of glare, in a word a wealth too proud to be fine. Every house, door, chair, and tea-cup, is new to me. Surely this is the China of Europe. Population 50,000; 30,000 are “Protestants. The University is the aristocratic one; between 400 and 500 students. The Jansenists are here in force — nowhere else. I am surprised that I see nothing as yet that strikes rne as funny. I am so overcome with the purity and peacefulness. The Germans and French are ten times droller. The Dutch children are just little Philadelphians, only with a cunning rig of their own. I have just been shaved. No brush, box, &c., own soap and towel. This is German also. The hydraulic power between the Dollart and Scheldt is estimated at $1,500,000,000; the value of windmills is $3,600,000. I observed signs of strong drink in Holland. Schiedam has 300 gin distilleries. The house in which Erasmus was born, is a gin-place. I observed, for the first time in Europe, pallor among the children; yet the people look healthy. The workingwomen are as neat at their work, as ours on Sundays. The churches are full. My general conclusion is, that the impulse of the Reformation, and its traditionary customs, abide very strong, and that, while they are on the descent towards German rationalism, they are not so far down as we think in America. They are dead and formal, but not universally erroneous. In the country places, I am assured, people read the old books and cling to the old doctrine. Catechizing and pastoral visiting are kept up. Country pastors are “orthodox,” but I failed to learn precisely what that term imports in Holland. Two educated and sensible men agreed in declaring that Utrecht is still orthodox, and that the body of the churches hold the divinity of our Lord and the atonement.

LONDON, August 12, 1851.

I dare say you think I am in Belgrave Square. Not a bit of it. I am at the George Inn, Aldermanbury, opening into Milk street, and so, southwardly, into Cheapside. You need not fear my lavishing all my admiration on England. I have been admiring all the way. If my geese are all swans — “at mihi plaudo.” It is so much in my pocket. But I have not failed to go, perhaps too largely, into the Mayhew-places.3 I continue to think the English of Englishmen, the ugliest language I ever heard. It is a tin-pan throat with the nose held. Every Englishman I have heard (and it has been many every day)

says knowledge, mther, wroth, vaws, (vase,) ‘ow, sovereign,

1 The intervening dates are Amsterdam, Leyden, Hague, Rotterdam.

2 Mayhew’s articles, first in the Times, describing the condition of the London poor.

(a word of every minute.) But they are by odds the best people to meet with I have seen.

August 14. — This morning I surveyed Billingsgate, the oyster-sloops, Coal Exchange, Old and New Corn Exchange, Leadenhall Market, and the India House. At the last I inquired of the doorkeeper about Charles Lamb. He said “I have been here since I was sixteen years old, but I never heard of any Mr. Lamb.” 1 But the door-keeper of the Museum remembered him well: “Oh yes, Sir; he was a very little man, with such small legs, and wore knee-breeches.” He directed me to a private stair, which would take me down to the Accounts. I went into a place below, like a bank, and was shown to a principal person, Mr. W. It was the room in which Lamb wrote many years, but had been altered. Mr. W. showed me his window and where his desk was. I looked out at the high blank wall, not five feet beyond, and understood Lamb’s “India House.” Mr. W. showed me a 4to volume of Interest Tables, writh such remarks as these, in Lamb’s fine round hand, on the fly-leaf: “A book of much interest. — Ed. Review” “A work in which the interest never flags. — Quar. Review” “We may say of this volume that the interest increases from the beginning to the end. — Monthly Review.” Mr. W. knew Lamb well. “He was a small man — smaller than you, and always wore shorts and black gaiters. Sometimes his puns were poor. He often came late, and then he would say, “Well, I’ll make up for it, by going away early.”

As I was prowling about, I saw over a dark entrance “Little Britain” It was not in human nature to overpass Little Britain, and glad am I that I did not. A great monastic walled court with quadrangle after quadrangle, cloisters along the sides, and lofty ancient” piles of the Elizabethan style, surrounding the paved areas — black, dingy, and quiet, with statues, pumps, and double iron fences in parts. It was Christ- Church Hospital! There are the dear little fellows, in the ancient dress. No hat, black velvet small clothes, yellow worsted hose, a long coat or frock of blue, a girdle of red leather, and bands like a preacher. There are about a thousand, but only eighty are here in vacation. The great Hall is modern and cost £30,000; all in one room. Here they eat, at tables which seem two centuries old. I went into the Mathematical school. The forms are very long and narrow, with the merest strip of a desk. The little scholar, who was my cicerone, said he was learning Greek and French. Wherever they go, in the remotest part of England, they have

1 “Elia”diedin 1834.
VOL. II. 7*

154- DURING HIS FIKST VISIT TO EUROPE.

to wear this garb. Coleridge and Lamb were blue-coat boys. All round the cloisters, or covered walks, marbles are set into the wall commemorative of teachers, benefactors, &c. One runs thus:

“HEBE LTETH

A BENEFACTOR,

MOVE NOT HIS BONES.”

I wondered at this antique silence in the heart of London, and came away with regret. I find myself to be an undeniable antiquary. My portrait ought to be taken, as Savigny is caricatured in Germany, with eyes at the back of the head. I have been such a miserable book-worm for forty years, that I live almost in the past.

When I say I like the English hugely, more by far than any people I have seen, I certainly do not mean that I like the fire and fury of the movement party. Religion is with them made up of politics and aggression, just as in some parts of America, of abstinence and abolitio’n. There is less known of us in England than on the continent. Here the papers cull chiefly what is laugh able, discreditable, or capable of turning to their own account. You cannot get through an Englishman’s hair the first notion of our confederation. They all have the grossest views of our slavery, and lose temper when spoken to. The people here press me to stay to the Evangelical Alliance, which has a great demonstration beginning on the 19th; but their programme contains some phrases which move my American spunk, and show they still have the same spirit they had last year.

I think the British Museum worth my whole voyage, and journey, and expense. It is just by my lodging. At last, after years of wishing, iny highest desires are accomplished, by sight of the greatest MSS. and antiques. To-day, on a third visit, I came away, worn out, after superficially seeing about the hundredth part. If anybody asks you whether 1 have been to the cemetery of Pere la Chaise, at Paris, say No: but I have been to Bunhill Fields, where are the ashes of Isaac Watts and John Bunyan..

LONDON, August 20, 1851.

I spent last evening in company of Dr. Dacosta and Dr. Capadose, of Holland, both celebrated as converted Jews, and promoters of evangelical piety. Capadose is full of Christian warmth and love, but he speaks English very judaically. Da costa cannot open his lips without your perceiving that he is an original. It has been said that he is the greatest mind in the Low Countries.

At the Evangelical Alliance I heard Noel speak. His pronunciation is precisely that of an educated South Carolinian, except a few words. Mr. James presided, with great empressement of manner, and great voice and rhetoric. The great house (Freemason’s Hall) was thronged, and they sit from ten till six. I must admire the temper of the Assembly. They are full of heartiness, and every one speaks to his neighbour. They receive the poorest, stammering speakers, with perfect forbearance. Indeed, it is all free and easy as a dinner. I have had an explanation with Dr. Hamilton about the Alliance, and declared to him that I would not submit to any queries about my opinions on slavery.

When I saw the sculptures from Italy, on my first visit to the Crystal Palace, 1 had never seen any thing so lovely in art. But when I visited it lately the charm was gone, for I had seen hundreds of ancient works in the Louvre. Yet, nothing equals the Elgin marbles.

Seeing Gothic churches has gone far to make me a convert to the Greek, in regard to exterior. As to interior, the Greek temple had none, for the cella cannot be so named. Inside I admit the sublimity of the structure. Henry the Vllth’s chapel is marvellous. Yet sitting there in one of the antique stalls, I owned in the very place that Gothic architecture is not the highest ideal of Bildkunst. So” much is grotesque, so much is reducible to no canon, so much excites wonder, like over-learned music for its seeming impracticability, that I go back to the perfect beauty of Paestum and the Parthenon for repose.

CAMBRIDGE, August 24, 1851.

Yesterday we left London, and got here in two hours. In our railway carriage was Mr. R. H. Wilkinson, a Senior Fellow of King’s College, and Bursar, (which is only fifth in rank, and in certain things only second,) who insisted we should put ourselves under his care. His elegant apartments are the same which good Mr. Simeon occupied. We (Dr. Robinson and I) dined one day in the Hall. The service was solid silver, with the College arms. All the china had the same. Rising, we went across the passage to the combination room, really a very sumptuous parlour, opening into one larger still. Here they sit at wine. Great reverence to “Mr. Vice Provost,” who is always so addressed. Here we had six added, only one

1 On the 23d of August Dr. Alexander’s youngest child, and only daughter, died at Princeton. Her age was about fourteen months. The afflictive tidings reached him at Glasgow.

clergyman. The conversation was perfectly easy, without a word about learning.

On Sunday attended service in the famous chapel of King’s College. Service chanted; all in surplices. Wilkinson looked grand in his white robes and master’s hood. I admired the manners of these learned Sybarites, especially the absence of all interrogations about America. I heard Scholefield, the Greek Professor, preach in St. Michael’s an admirable extempore ser mon. We saw every thing, visited all the Colleges. It was as if we had been old chums come back on a visit. The kingdom rings with the victory of the American yacht. They are very open and manly, in expressing their chagrin. I have never seen or dreamed of any persons so full of real, though peculiar kindness, as the educated English. I like America best, though lost in admiration of England.

EDINBURGH, August 27, 1851.

This is the ninety-seventh day of my absence, yet the first in which I expect to lie down in a private house. You cannot imagine how I felt to get into a sweet, happy, elegant Christian house, [Mr. Wm. Dicksori’s, an Elder of the Free Church,] and have family-worship and sing the old psalms. Then, oh how delightful to be among Presbyferians! To-day for the first time have I seen the hills covered with heather, and beautiful it is. We visited Melrose Abbey and Abbotsford, and saw Dryburgh Abbey, where Scott lies.

August 29. — I saw the Queen come in yesterday afternoon, and stood so near as to have a perfect view of her Majesty and Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, and the Princess Royal.

September 1. — I preached yesterday for the Rev. C. J. Brown, in the Free New North Church. I will only say I was never so helped by a congregation. Imagine me in the Geneva cloak; five hundred Bibles rustling at once; such deep, penetrative, animated looks from whole rows of people, all seeming fired with zeal, and all singing without an exception that I could note. I thought it far better than the Madeleine or Cologne. Mr. Dickson edits a youth’s paper. He teaches two Bible classes. I preached to one of them. It contains 70 — 80 girls. An hour was spent studying rather than saying the lesson. I should have thought the examination a good one for the first [the youngest] class in the Seminary. They answered the questions with a

1 On the 26th left Cambridge, and to Ely, Peterborough, Lincoln, York, Alnwick, Ber lick-upon-Tweed.

pertinence, knowledge of Scripture, and exactness which amazed me.

GLASGOW, September 9, 1851.

That my journeying has done any good to my body, I am not sure. I am sure it has been good for my soul. And especially these few days in Scotland have shown me a permanent revival of religion, such as proves to me that God has a favour to his covenanting people. The preciousness of it is, that religion is founded on chapter and verse; free from outcry and sanctimony, and even talk about personal feelings, but is so courageous, active, and tender, that I am as certain as that I am writing these lines, that I am among the best people on earth. A thousand times have I said to myself, “O if my father could just for one hour hear these prayers, and observe these fruits of unadulterated Culvinistic seed!” Here is the fruit of prayers sent up by Kutherfords and Bostons. Don’t think all are such, or that these people are faultless. Their faults are as prominent as their good qualities. They have the bad points belonging to strong, sanguine ous, choleric, fearless, outspoken people. Their quarrels about hairsbreadths (for they are all agreed about doctrine and order) are inexplicable.

In Glasgow there are more hideous, half-naked people, than I ever saw anywhere on the continent. I own they generally look hearty, but the public charities are kept in full operation. Thousands of Irish are here. While a low, radical infidelity is doing its work, and whisky is slaying its thousands, there are tokens that Presbyterian institutions are acting vigorously. Our system is more than a theory. Church power makes itself felt. Elders are more numerous than with us; sometimes twenty and even thirty. The Kirk has no Deacons, but some Free Churches have twenty each, who do every thing that is done among us by voluntary collections. The sums raised are almost incredible. Indeed, religious arrangements take the place in public conversation which politics do with us; and I scarcely meet two men without hearing them talk about some scheme of church-operation. All the piety is not in the Free Church.

Dr. Robinson left me on the 4th, to go to Southampton. “We have been just a month together, and have had many mercies in common. I have cause to be thankful for the lessons I

1 I have to omit the details of the visits to the institutions, libraries, historical localities, churches, eminent ministers, &c., of Edinburgh. He said, “I find it utterly vain to try to journalize here.” “Particulars would fill fifty sheets.” On the 1st September he left the hospitable city — to Stirling — by the lakes — to Dunbarton, where he took steamer for Glasgow.

have learned from him. Truly he has been “eyes” to me all the way, by reason of his stupendous topical penetration.

I spent some days at Helensburgh opposite Greenock on the .Clyde, at Mr. Mitchell’s. On the Sabbath I preached once for Mr. McEwen. The Edinburgh and Glasgow ministers spend more time in summering and in excursions, than those of the United States, while their climate gives less reason for it. The colleges and theological halls have a vacation of at least six entire months. But the places of worship are never shut up.

It is altogether impossible for me to describe the kindness I received at Glasgow. The M.’s are a generation even beyond their own countrymen.

BELFAST, September 17, 1851.

I arrived here on the 12th. There are seventeen Presbyterian churches in Belfast. I heard Dr. Cook at his church, on fellowship with God; I regard him as the nearest perfection as an elegant orator, of all 1 have met with. His hospitalities were Irish and Christian. We mounted a jaunting-car, and rode by Carrickfergus, Ballygelly, and Ballycastle to the Giant’s Causeway. All along the incomparable coast of Glenarm Bay, people were bathing. The world can scarcely offer a more delightful place, and the day was mildly warm, with a golden haze. Fair Head is a lofty sea-mark, a promontory of majestic loveliness. Bengore Head is second only to this; and the intervening long sweep of bay, shut in by the isle of Rathlin, with its blue pearly heights, almost sickened me with its fairy-like softness. We reached the excellent inn at the Giant’s Causeway about the end of the long northern twilight. In all my journey ings, there is no day I would more gladly repeat. The people interest me more than any thing else. How sharp and how merry! The mixture of Scots and Irish here, is very obvious. In the oatsfield they show finely. Here only among their own scenes can Irish beauty be seen. I have seen many faces, which had the beauty of expression, among the poor women and girls. Tuesday was given to the Causeway and accessories. Description is unnecessary. From the Causeway in a jaunting-car through the county Antrim. There are no barns. The grain is stacked, and hereabouts in beautiful English-looking ricks. The land is very fertile, and wherever an owner has it in hand presents a noble appearance; but in the poor, little patches of the cotters, even here in Antrim, it is a chance agriculture, like the slovenly patches about a negro-quarter. They live from hand to mouth, You pass single cottages, and groups of cottages, all in ruins, as after a fire. These are of people who, ruined by the rot, have been swept into the fine spacious poor-houses. The cottages are all of rough stone and thatched. Their general average look is thus: [Here is a pen and ink sketch of a hovel.] Out of such houses I have again and again seen handsome and joyous families pouring, with here and there a pallid, fever-looking creature. So open and welcoming a smile I never saw prevail in any human’ faces. Calves walk in and out of many cottages as freely as the yellow-haired children. About Antrim and especially the Moravian settlement, Grace Hill, we see what care and taste may do. Such vales, such hills, such gateways, bleach ing grounds like fields of snow, such hedges, and such green and gold, as even Devonshire might own. Such might all Ireland be, if the priests had chosen to instruct their slaves.

DUBLIN, September 17, 1851.

From Belfast we crossed the county Armagh to Castle Blayney and Dublin. Thus far, there is no part of my travels which I would so readily repeat, as my Irish trip. The mode of travelling, the roads, the access to the people, the awakening of human sympathies, the physical geography, the rapid com parison of races, must make me ever mindful of it. I have seen grander scenes, and a few more beautiful, but none more lovely than all Ulster and a part of Leinster. True I see much misery, but compassion is a healthful feeling; and while I admire some nations, I can truly add I love the Irish. For surface I believe there is no such country in the world. I have seen no part, out of towns, where there is any level. The roads are as smooth as this table. You have no idea of the demigods the priests have become. They might this day make Ireland happy, by teaching their wretched worshippers to read, to build, to till, and to keep clean. The Protestant regions are like Scotland; you can instantly tell the difference by rags, stench, and merry ignorance.

Dublin shows extremes of magnificence and squalid woe, such as seldom meet. The better sort of people strike me as the handsomest I ever saw. There is one type of face which predominates and is peculiarly Irish — black hair and eye-lashes, large clear blue eyes, red and white skin of unusual delicacy, and a joyous, arch expression playing through all. Happy Dublin, if it were not the capital of a ruined land.

1 Leaving Dublin the 19th September, the traveller passed through Kildare, Thurles, Inch, Limerick. Thence by Ennis, (County Clare), Gort, (County Galway,) to Galway, the fifth city of Ireland, but “far, far beyond all I ever dreamed of for squalor, filth, and poverty.” On the 22d left Gal-OXFORD, September 26, 1851.

I came here to dinner yesterday from Liverpool, 176 miles. We touched Rugby village, about a mile from the school. It is vacation here, which is bad; but the claustral silence, and venerable solitude, and regal-ecclesiastical state of this monastic city of palaces is surely unique. The impression is that of an awful dream. You have read so long and so much about Oxford that I should think it idle to repeat what is in a score of books. I will set down some incoherencies not in print.

Oxford is larger, greater, and lordlier than Cambridge. It has more colleges, more large colleges, and an aggregate of architectural glories beyond Cambridge; but Oxford has nothing like King’s College, Cambridge, and little like Trinity, and no grounds like those of the last named. There is a family-likeness in the two towns, but Oxford is more antique, civic, mediaeval, and proud. Cambridge has incomparably the more beautiful site. There is no chapel in Oxford, or the world, like King’s at Cambridge. There is no Hall at Cambridge like Christ Church here. The turf is close-shaven, cut every few days, rolled and swept, and is unlike any thing known among us, the moist climate favouring grass. Flowers abound, not only in the landscape-gardening of the immense college-greens, but in the windows of fellows. Some of the quadrangles here are not green, but gravelled. Christ Church meadow is surrounded by a walk of a mile, and elms three centuries old. You may lose yourself in the groves and thickets of some of these river-gardens. I learn that the “men” seldom prefer them to the streets. The halls or refecto ries, are, as a whole, less regal than at Cambridge, except only Christ Church, where they daily provide for three hundred in term. Around these are portraits, generally full-length, of great members. The painted glass windows in the chapels are by far the best I have met with, especially five Flemish windows in New college chapel, (William of Wyckham’s.) The feeling in these cloisters, “quods,” and parks, (where deer come to your hand,) is that of absolute sequestration from the world. Pusey’s house, in one of the inner corners of Christ Church, is just the spot to generate such fancies as his.

The system here, though inexpressibly fascinating, is out of harmony with the age. In every buttery -entrance, where you look to espy a monk under the black honey-combed arches, you see the placards of “Time Tables of N. W. Railway.” The present Warden of All-Souls (where there are none but

way and crossed the country by Athlone and Maynooth to Dublin. On the 23d to Holyhead and Liverpool.

fellows,) is the first married warden. The pressure of the age will certainly bring collapse on these outworn cenobitic shells. I feel it every moment in a country where steam affects every inch, and trains thunder by some places twenty in a day. The agitation about exclusive privileges and overgrown foundations every year shakes down part of the old pile, as in regard to the income of Bishops, by the late Act. A clergyman here is regarded everywhere with a deference unknown anywhere else. But as a class they evidently feel very fully that they are on their good behaviour, and that public opinion cannot be disregarded. Some, I believe many, are labouring to gain good will to the church, in the best of all ways.

It would consume pages, and emulate guide-books, to tell of college after college, chapel after chapel, halls, gardens, portraits, statues, libraries, and cloisters. Books of great size are taken up with this. Dr. Routh, author of the Reliquiae Sacrse, Master of Magdalen College, has his portrait in the Bodleian, set. 96. He is the oldest living Oxonian.

The general effect produced by Oxford is soothing to my mind in a high degree. Such self-contained wealth of learning, such seclusion from the stir of life, such yielding of every thing to learned honours, such architectural glory, such libraries, such lawns, such trees, such prizes held out to studious ambition, such histories of past genius, such mighty and beloved names, such costly display of taste, such approaches to what Rome was and would fain be, exist here only and at Cambridge, and more here than there. But it all strikes me as a tree whose root is dead in the earth, vast, green, and lovely, but destined to die presently. I doubt whether the glory has not already passed away. The true Oxonian spirit is that of Newman and Pusey; but it is not of the age. Such a chapel as Christ College, which has lately been repaired at an expense of $90,000, is fitted to absorb a young man in reveries, but they are of an age which cannot live again. My hopes rise beyond what I am able to report during this rapid tour, that God is working by new agencies, and a new Zeitgeist, and our new world, to bring in a new kingdom. So far from letting my intense and scarce excusable fondness for the relics of darker ages tempt me to wish them back again, or try to imitate them, I am even more filled with a sense of the gigantic progress of the modern arts and civilization. One day at the Exhibition, one day at Birmingham and Manchester, or one day on any one trunk of English railways, is worth volumes to awaken expectation.2 I have meditated, I trust not unusefully,

1 Dr. Routh nearly completed his century, dying December 22, 1854. * Dr. Alexander left Oxford September 26th, arrived the same day at amidst objects which have the odour of past ages. My reigning sentiment, after hurrying and exciting travel among the thousands of this unspeakably teeming population of Europe, is an impression that men and generations pass away like the herb of the field, but the Word of the Lord abideth forever; his kingdom is coming; his house is going up; his plan is unfolding; old traditionary things which vain man calls eternal, are crumbling; new things predicted, but not expected, are rolling in like a flood; our life and that of our children, is but a link in the great chain. I trust I can sometimes add, “Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done.”

Birmingham — on the 27th passed on to Liverpool. Here he heard Mr. Mc-Neile,whom he places with Dr. Cook, of Belfast, as “by a long way the most eloquent men I have heard in these climates.” On the first of October he embarked on the steamer Atlantic, Captain West. On the 12th (Sunday) he and Bishop Otey preached in the saloon. After a stormy run, the steamer reached New York October 15th, and the same evening Dr. Alexander joined his family at Princeton.