AT THE HAGUE PEACE CONFERENCE: 1-1899 261 



impressive chorals, and a sermon at least an hour long. 

 At our request, we were given admirable places in the 

 organ-loft, and sat at the side of the organist as he man 

 aged that noble instrument. It was sublime. After the 

 closing voluntary Holls played remarkably well. 



To me the most striking feature in the service was 

 a very earnest prayer made by the clergyman for the 

 conference. During the afternoon we also visited the old 

 prison near the Vijver, where the De Witts and other 

 eminent prisoners of state were confined, and in front 

 of which the former were torn in pieces by the mob. 

 Sadly interesting was a collection of instruments of tor 

 ture, which had the effect of making me better satisfied 

 with our own times than I sometimes am. 



In the evening, with our minister, Mr. Newel, and the 

 Dean of Ely, his guest, to an exceedingly pleasant &quot;tea&quot; 

 at the house of Baroness Gravensteen, and met a number 

 of interesting people, among them a kindly old gentle 

 man who began diplomatic life as a British attache at 

 Washington in the days of Webster and Clay, and gave 

 me interesting accounts of them. 



The queer letters and crankish proposals which come 

 in every day are amazing. I have just added to my col 

 lection of diplomatic curiosities a letter from the editor 

 of a Democratic paper in southern Illinois, addressed to 

 me as ambassador at Mayence, which he evidently takes 

 to be the capital of Germany, asking me to look after a 

 great party of Western newspaper men who are to go 

 up the Ehine this summer and make a brief stay in the 

 above-named capital of the empire. I also receive very 

 many letters of introduction, which of course make large 

 demands upon my time. The number of epistles, also, 

 which come in from public meetings in large and small 

 American towns is very great, some evidently repre 

 senting no persons other than the writers. As I write the 

 above, I open mechanically a letter from a peace meeting 

 assembled in Ledyard, Connecticut, composed of &quot;Roger- 

 ine Quakers ; but what a 1 1 Rogerine Quaker &quot; is I know 

 not. Some of these letters are touching, and some have 



