and she
answered, "I will." Whereupon he asked the congregation to show by their
hands if they approved of her being baptized; and there being a
sufficient show of hands, she was told she was duly elected as a
candidate for baptism; when another hymn being struck up in the same
vociferous style as before, we rose and left the assembly, not liking to
be longer absent from papa. We came out upon the lovely, calm, moonlight
night, so sweet, so exquisitely heavenly; and I felt how differently
nature looked without, to those distressing sights of bodily agitation
and contortion we had witnessed within. I thought of the poor young
negro girl's quiet testimony, and gentle voice and manner, and wondered
if _she_, too, would learn in time to become uproarious, and shout,
"Glory! Glory!" The probability is, that she will become like her
neighbours; for I can tell you later other stories about the necessity
these poor nigger women seem to be under to shout "Glory!" I was glad to
have seen this specimen of the camp-meeting style.

Although I have felt it scarcely possible to describe the scene without
a certain mixture of the ludicrous, no feeling of irreverence crossed my
mind at the time. On the contrary, my sympathies were greatly drawn out
towards these our poor fellow-creatures; and there was something most
instructive in the sight of them there assembled to enjoy those highest
blessings--blessings of which no man could rob them. Religion seemed to
be to them not a mere sentiment or feeling, but a real tangible
possession; and one could read, in their appreciation of it, a lesson to
one's own heart of its power to lift man above all earthly sorrow,
privation, and degradation into an upper world, as it were, even here
below, of "joy and peace in believing."

To-day, after posting our letters for England, papa went to General
Cass, Secretary of State for the United States, and delivered his letter
of introduction from Mr. Dallas, the American Minister in London. He had
a long and interesting interview with him.

We went afterwards to the Capitol, and all over it, under the guidance
of our coachman, a very intelligent and civil Irishman. We were quite
taken by surprise at what we saw; for not only is the building itself,
which is of white marble, a very fine one, but the internal fittings, or
"fixings," as they perpetually call them here, show a degree of taste
for which before leaving England we had not given the Americans cre