The price of entrance to this little Eden, is the six cents you
pay at the ferry. We went there on a bright Sunday afternoon,
expressly to see the humours of the place. Many thousand persons
were scattered through the grounds; of these we ascertained, by
repeatedly counting, that nineteen-twentieths were men. The
ladies were at church. Often as the subject has pressed upon my
mind, I think I never so strongly felt the conviction that the
Sabbath-day, the holy day, the day on which alone the great
majority of the Christian world can spend their hours as they
please, is ill passed (if passed entirely) within brick walls,
listening to an earth-born preacher, charm he never so wisely.
"Oh! how can they renounce the boundless store
Of charms, which Nature to her vot'ries yields!
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields,
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even,
All that the mountain's sheltering bosom yields,
And all the dread magnificence of heaven;
Oh! how can they renounce, and hope to be forgiven!"
How is it that the men of America, who are reckoned good husbands
and good fathers, while they themselves enjoy sufficient freedom
of spirit to permit their walking forth into the temple of the
living God, can leave those they love best on earth, bound in the
iron chains of a most tyrannical fanaticism? How can they
breathe the balmy air, and not think of the tainted atmosphere so
heavily weighing upon breasts still dearer than their own? How
can they gaze upon the blossoms of the spring, and not remember
the fairer cheeks of their young daughters, waxing pale, as they
sit for long sultry hours, immured with hundreds of fellow
victims, listening to the roaring vanities of a preacher
canonized by a college of old women? They cannot think it
needful to salvation,or they would not withdraw themselves.
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