As regards the missionaries themselves, I do not know any class of men that presents, as a body, a more respectable array of talent or intelligence than this; and if any one should be disposed to doubt the fact, the proof is very easily to be found. He has only to take their reports to their several societies, their letters and published addresses to the public, and when he has read them, I will challenge him to produce from any other class of men, productions so uniformly correct in style, so free from puerilities, and so abundant in useful facts and valuable sentiments. In geography and statistics, in mineralogy, in geology, and in various other matters of science, they have furnished us with a mass of most valuable information from all parts of the world; their observations are minute, and generally very correct; and if the world were to receive no other benefit than the knowledge which their papers have scattered among our community, it would be recompensed for the money bestowed upon them. I do not wish to write their panegyric, but to defend them from charges which I have often heard brought against them; and the defence is a simple statement of facts which are before the public, and to which any man who chooses may have access. As to the charge that the pictures they give of their successes are over-wrought, I believe it often to be just; and it is not strange that men who have given their lives to one great subject, and are filled with zeal and are in earnest about it, should sometimes over-rate their influence, or, in the excitement of supposed or real success, should draw a picture more highly colored than a cooler observation of facts would warrant. But this, I believe, is the extent of their offending; they themselves appear to have been taught by experience greater distrust and caution in these matters; and their recent accounts will be found to be more stamped with prudence, and more the result of cool and calm observation, than they formerly were; while they show no diminution of interest in their great work. I cannot help again earnestly recommending their letters and reports home, and repeating that these reports, coming from so large a number of men, and so variously situated, are remarkable for perspicuity of style, and for simplicity and yet force of expression. The night of the 21st passed away like the preceding one, a long night, and one of great anxiety; life seemed to be hanging by so brittle a thread, that the least shock appeared capable of breaking it. I stole now and then from the sick man’s couch, and looked out upon the city, bathed in moonlight, and hushed in the deepest repose. How quiet! how tranquil! Could this be the Jerusalem where, in a short time, 1,100,000 had perished amid the horrors of war?