nation. Arch-bishops, bishops, vicars, canons, deans, chapters, curates,
&c., constitute a list of ecclesiastical dignitaries whose functions are
not very easily defined and comprehended by a stranger. Just before
service commenced, he conducted me to a seat near the pulpit. Rev.
Thorold, the officiating clergyman, is a very able speaker, and made the
first attempt at argument in his discourse that I had yet listened to in
England. Preaching, in England, like the reciting of prayers, is all so
much blank assertion--no more, and no less. I had never before so felt the
force of _unquestioned authority_ as I learned to feel and appreciate it
in the services of the Episcopal Church of England. The very fact of
arguing a question is in itself a compromise of its one-sidedness and of
the infallibility of the position the preacher may have taken; but let the
clergy of an entire nation read the same mass and recite the same prayers
in all their congregations, and let them refrain from discussing
scriptural texts, and all give one and the same answer to each and every
question, and there will soon be an end of sectarianism. The best
reasoning has always provoked more doubt than it has established faith,
and in consequence, ever been more fruitful of contention than of peace.
So long as a people are one-minded they will be peaceful and contended
even if they are bound in wretched slavery, but the tide of revolution has
set in at London, and the church begins to tremble, and the clergy to
argue. In the afternoon, the weather being very fair, I went to



Hyde Park.


This park has an area of 388 acres, upon which may be seen all the wealth
and fashion and splendid equipages of the nobility and gentry of England.