Summary
March 24. Ther. 43°. Sunday.—We heard a highly evangelical discourse in a church in Broad Street, a little above Chestnut Street, and found a handsome edifice, a large congregation, and an able preacher; not the pastor of the church, however, but a stranger. His text was, “Take up the cross and follow me;” and he drew a lively picture of the difference between what he called the maxims and wisdom of the world, and the obligations of Christianity.
March 25. Ther. 43°. The Friends of the People.—I have had the pleasure of meeting in society here an old gentleman who was the friend and associate of Muir, Skirving, and other Scottish Reformers, at the beginning of the French Revolution, and who at that time left his native country on account of political persecution. He settled here, and has been successful in business, having realized a competence. He is much respected.
The Fire Department.—I have already mentioned that the fire-engines are all served voluntarily by the young men of the city; and that they even keep up the engines and hose at their own expense, assisted occasionally by the profits of a ball, or a donation from the civic corporation. I have endeavoured to discover the motives which have maintained this system in full energy for a century. In the first place, in observing the men in one of their processions, I perceived that they were almost all under thirty years of age, and of the sanguine, or sanguine-nervous, or sanguine bilious, temperaments, which give great love of excitement and action.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Notes on the United States of North America during a Phrenological Visit in 1838–39–40 , pp. 173 - 222Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010