The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-09-08
you very good discourse, if You win go witt


party, and said they felt themselves pledged to
listen to DR.. Mayo, to whom they had been pre-
scented, and who had personally expressed his
pleasure of having them among his auditors in
St Nicholas Hail."
The Rev. DR.. Bulloch, and lady, and daugh-
ter, and niece, were introduced to us by mu-
tual friend from Detroit, whom we met here on
our arrival. Aunt Jane was delighted with
this party of Western travellers. They are all
strikingly Kentuckian-tall, graceful, frank,
and winning. I could but contrast their beau
tiful, unaffected bearing with the made-up men
and women around me. Aunt Jane says they
are the most perfectly agreeable and lovely per-
sons she has met with herei We have seen
them almost every day for the last ten days !;
and when under the influence of truthful, re-
fined, and graceful manners, yelling up out of
souls full of pure and holy affections, feel the
force of all that our friend Judge B. said to
me last week, that naturalness is the greatest
Of all attractions, both in men and women, and
the most difficult to preserve. For, he says, in
society, little by little we become conventional,
And Geese to speak, and at last 70 think our
own thoughts. He compared it to the slow pro-
cess of petrifaction. The soul will wear the
same semblance as before, but, like submerged
wood, when we come into close contact, it is
icy cold; and if we lift it, we shall find it heavy
as stone. And the Judge tells me that these
results are inevitable-and that all minds COM
ing under the influences of fashionable life, in
the degree of their conformity, are affected by
it, and that piety has no shield to its hardening
and changing influences; and that if myself l.
shall spend my future winters in the fashionable
circles of New York and Washington, and.my
summers at Saratoga and Newport, living for
ever with persons who have no other aim than
the pleasures of society,"" falsely so called,
then / too shall find myself untitled for the
duties of life, and viii make sad shipwreck
not only of my own happiness, but of the hap
piness of all who may stand associated with
me. And the Judge pointed out 10 me several
lovely girls and wives, then promenading the
piazza, whom he assured me were in various
stages of induration.
| OF these, several were church members, in
good standing in orthodox and evangelical
churches, and with whom he was intimately
acquainted l asked him if he had made any
effort to save them from such ruin of all their
happiness for time and eternity, and he said
that he had done so honestly with those whose
souls were worth saving; but there were some
4 so utterly devoid of all appreciation of the no.
bility of womanhood, that the sooner they danced
themselves into the grave, the better it weuld
be for the world. 1t was perfectly frightful to
hear Judge B. talk; and was frightened
out of my wits as he told me of the physical
results of fashionable life upon women. He
said he had it told him by an eminent physician
of New York, whose wife had attended seven
uptown bridal parties in the winter of 1867,
and six of these brides were now in their graves,
and the seventh a hopeless invalid A similar
statement / remember to have been made to
mother by Mrs. DR.. c.. Bat this has moth
ing to do with Rev. DR.. Bulloch's discourse.
| n,, 81
met by gentleman who seated us in a central
pew, where we found full supply of hymn
books and in due course of Divine service, DIR.
B came to his sermon, which he preached
from iii Johns Gospel, 5th verse" Except a
man be born of water and of he Spirit, he can
| not enter into the Kingdom of God" His open
ing showed that baptismal regeneration was
not the doctrine of the text and this done, he
made an admirable discourse, which came close
home to the business and bosoms OF the audi
ence, myself in particular. He made little use
of notes, as / am told is the custom of Western
preachers. His words had much more of i'm
pressiveness followed as they were by the glance
of his eye-such eyes l! and giving signi6cancy
and force to every gesture.
AS Aunt Jane is too feeble to go ont in the
afternoon, asked Mrs c. to go with me to
hear DR.. Adams, of Madison Square Church.
With her accustomed kindness and courtesy,
she granted my request and we two went alone,
for Dick preferred to remain. and keep his
mother company. The text was from what the
Doctor termed the nerus of St. Paul's noble
Episte to the Romans, uniting the first eleven
chapters of the doctrines of the Church of God
with the duties of Christians, and which make
up the remainder of this Epistle. This bond
of union is to be found in the first verse of the
twelfth chapter, thus-"I beseech you, there
fore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that We
present your bodies q living sacrifice, holy, ac-
ceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service" In brief introduction, DIR. Adams
said the slightest scholarship would show that
the word translated "your bodies " should read
yourselves" which was the intensity of ex.
preston in the original of Paul. 1t was dis
course calculated to produce powerful i'm
preston upon the audience, and was most
proper to be preached before such congrega-
ton as was here assembled, coming from all
sections of our country, endowed by God with
His best gifts of talents, wealth, and influence,
in their several homes. 1t certainly made me
feel the solemnity and responsibility of living.
After church, Mrs. c. and myself made a
circuitous walk homewards, for / wanted to
converse with her about the sermon.
| So soon as we were out of the crowd, told
her how had been impressed, and that it
seemed to me could only realize the life urged
by St. Paul, and enforced by DR.. Adams, by
seeking out, with C.wper,
"A lodge in some vast wilderness ,lf
Some boundiess conuguiIy Of shade"
where the hum of busy life could never reach
me. And she responded with entire sympathy
to all my dependency. She, too, felt it was
| impossible to live up to the high demands of a
spiritual life, surrounded by society so utterly
hostile to the souls aspirations for heaven.
!" And them" she said, "lite is such an enigma /
Why was / born, and what more have to do
and to suffer- What is living, but one long
| sigh after repose?" And SO we two walked
till the sun was sinking, making the day glo-
rious in its end, as / hope all our lives will be.
We then, having said all we had to say, came
to the conclusion that we would now go to
had heard and of all that we had said. She
was expecting us, and was alone, for / met
Dick and Amelia on the piazza most unde-
sirable place for Sunday.
We sat down, and having told all we could
remember, we then went ON to repeat our own
conclusions. Aunt Jane heard us with her
wonted loving kindness, and then said, "My
dear Mrs. c., and you my niece, are fitted
for your several walks in life, to which God, in
His holy providence, has appointed you. The
prayer of our God and Saviour was, not that
his disciples should be taken out of the world,
but that, being in the world, they should be
kept from the evil 1t is your duty to live a
life of loving sympathy with the world around
you; not conforming to the sinful practices of
the world, making no war upon society, but by
pureness, by gentleness, by goodness, profess
ing to be the disciples of Christ, like him, learn
not to please yourselves, and to do good. This
viii call for daily bearing of the cross of self
sacrifice. This notion of yours, that seclusion