The weather for the next two days was so unfavourable that we could not go out at all.  Among the information I then derived from books were the following precious morsels from the Introduction to the Natural History of New York:  “The Governor was directed by Queen Anne to take especial care that the Almighty should be devoutly and duly served according to the rites of the Church of England,” and was at the same time desired by the Queen “to take especial care that the colony should have a constant and sufficient supply of merchantable negroes at moderate rates.”  Just what our own West India planters now want!  Oh! how they would hail the return of the palmy days of Queen Anne!

On Sabbath the 28th of March I was invited to preach in the morning in the church of Dr. L——­, a Congregational place of worship, capable of accommodating about 500 persons.  The attendance was not more than 200.  There I was delighted to find no negro pew.  A few coloured children were intermingled with the white ones in the gallery.  The Doctor, to whom I had not been introduced, was already in the pulpit when I arrived.  The ceremony of introduction to each other had to be duly performed in the rostrum.  He is a fine, tall, clean, and venerable-looking old gentleman.  He began the service, and, before sermon, announced that they would then “take up” the usual collection.  That place of worship is what they call a “Free Church,”—­i.e. there is no pew-letting; as a substitute for which, they “take up” a weekly collection.  The Doctor also made the following announcement:  “A Missionary of the London Missionary Society, from Guiana, one of the South American possessions of Britain,—­his name is Mr. Davies,—­will now preach; and in the evening Professor Kellog from——­, a long friend of mine, will preach.”  At the close I was introduced to the Doctor’s long friend, Professor Kellog; and sure enough he was a “long” one!  There was present also Professor Whipple, of the Oberlin Institute, to whom I had before been introduced.

In the afternoon I preached for a Mr. C——­, in a Presbyterian Church.  The place was beautiful, commodious, and nearly full.  The pastor introduced the service.  In his manner of doing so, I was very much struck with—­what I had before often observed in our Transatlantic brethren—­a great apparent want of reverence and fervour.  The singing was very good—­in the choir.  In my address, I urged them to give their legislators, and their brethren in the South, no rest till the guilt and disgrace of slavery were removed from their national character and institutions.  I also besought them, as men of intelligence and piety, to frown upon the ridiculous and contemptible prejudice against colour wherever it might appear.  To all which they listened with apparent kindness and interest.

We took tea by invitation with Dr. L——­, for whom I had preached in the morning.  There we met with his nice wife, nice deacon, nice little daughters, and nice nieces,—­but a most intolerable nephew.  This man professed to be greatly opposed to slavery, and yet was full of contempt for “niggers.”  He talked and laughed over divisions in certain churches, and told the company how he used occasionally to go on Sunday nights to hear a celebrated minister, just “for the sake of hearing him talk—­ha—­ha—­ha!” And yet this was a professor of religion!