114 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



cause at all. I should not care to be now a traveller on 

 the Continent. The case of those three young English 

 noblemen at Leghorn occurred while we were there, in 

 July, and it was feared by Americans that it would go hard 

 with them. I have been hoping that we might visit you in 

 the progress of our approaching journey, but I think it will 

 now be impracticable, as we do not set out until Tuesday, 

 and shall stop in the cities, and I must be in Washington 

 on Friday. I will not, however, relinquish the hope that 

 we may meet once more in this world ; and if not before, I 

 will flatter myself that I may make an excursion in the 

 summer, if life and health are spared, and find you at Bur 

 lington where I used to find my dear friend, Charles 

 Chauncey. Alas ! most of my early friends are now in the 

 other world. I am now seventy-two years and five months 

 old, and if I remember correctly, you are a few years in 

 advance of me, and we have no right to make engagements 

 for distant periods of time. As to the destitution of per 

 sonal piety among mankind, I believe you have pointed out 

 the true causes. God can emancipate man from his de 

 pravity, and plant and invigorate faith in his mind, and 

 human means seem ineffectual and accomplish little'; 

 but although we are weak and our minds dark, we are not 

 excused from exertion, and all may diffuse an influence 

 around them for good ; and teachers of science, who are 

 indeed expounders of the will of God, as it is recorded in 

 His works, should always live and breathe in a moral and 

 religious atmosphere, and draw their pupils within it that 

 they so may inhale its precious influence. I think also, with 

 you, that those who find the God of nature in His works 

 should also find the God of revelation in His word, and not 

 leave it a matter of doubt, whether they look to the Saviour 

 for their salvation. It seems almost as if nothing short of 

 a miraculous interposition of God Himself could effectually 

 arouse mankind from their lethargy, or emancipate them 

 from the bondage of sin. This state of things does not 





