“Where human law o’errules Divine,
  Beneath the sheriff’s hammer fell
My wife and babes,—­I call them mine,—­
  And where they suffer who can tell? 
    The hounds are baying on my track;
    O Christian! will you send me back?

“I seek a home where man is man,
  If such there be upon this earth,—­
To draw my kindred, if I can,
  Around its free though humble hearth. 
    The hounds are baying on my track;
    O Christian! will you send me back?”

March 7.—­This being the Sabbath, we went in the morning to worship at Mr. Boynton’s church.  The day was very wet, and the congregation small.  His text was, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.  He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”  The sermon, though read, and composed too much in the essay style, indicated considerable powers of mind and fidelity of ministerial character.  Although from incessant rain the day was very dark, the Venetian blinds were down over all the windows!  The Americans, I have since observed, are particularly fond of the “dim religious light.”  Among the announcements from the pulpit were several funerals, which it is there customary thus to advertise.

In the afternoon I heard Dr. Beecher.  Here, again, I found the blinds down.  The Doctor’s text was, “Let me first go and bury my father,” &c.  Without at all noticing the context,—­an omission which I regretted,—­he proceeded at once to state the doctrine of the text to be, that nothing can excuse the putting off of religion—­that it is every man’s duty to follow Christ immediately.  This subject, notwithstanding the heaviness of the day, the infirmities of more than threescore years and ten (74), and the frequent necessity of adjusting his spectacles to consult his notes, he handled with much vigour and zeal.  Some of his pronunciations were rather antiquated; but they were the elegant New England pronunciations of his youthful days.  The sermon was marked by that close and faithful dealing with the conscience in which so many American ministers excel.

Professor Allen called to take me up to Lane Seminary, where I was to address the students in the evening.  The service was public, and held in the chapel of the institution; but the evening being wet, the congregation was small.  I had, however, before me the future pastors of about fifty churches, and two of the professors.  I was domiciled at Mr. Allen’s.  Both he and his intelligent wife are sound on the subject of slavery.  They are also quite above the contemptible prejudice against colour.  But I was sorry to hear Mrs. Allen say, that, in her domestic arrangements, she had often had a great deal of trouble with her European servants, who would refuse to take their meals with black ones, though the latter were in every respect superior to the former!  I have heard similar remarks in other parts of America.  Mr. Allen’s system of domestic training appeared excellent.  His children, of whom he has as many as the patriarch Jacob, were among the loveliest I had ever seen.