On arriving at Chicago, my first thought was to see the Lake, one of the great fresh-water seas I had been reading of, since I was a boy. I was now within a few paces of it, and was only prevented by the houses from looking upon it. I had driven to the Sherman House, a large hotel on one side of the square in the centre of which stands the City Hall; and I had been told that the only good view of the city, and of the Lake, was to be had from the gallery round the top of the dome of this building. It was not long before I ascended the stairs that led to it; and as I stepped out on the balcony, the boundless blue water, reflecting the undimmed hazeless sky, and washing up almost to the foot of the building, and stretching away beyond the horizon, suddenly burst on the view. It was Lake Michigan. Imagination does much on such occasions. I felt satisfied. It was not only worth seeing, but it was worth coming to see. Here, in these vast reservoirs, is Nature carrying on some of her hydraulic operations upon the grandest scale in the world. Here, too, at this very spot, at its southern point, the countless buffalo used to drink the water of the Lake, and here it was that the red man was waiting to welcome him; and now the white man is ploughing, and harvesting, and building cities all around its shores, and its waters are wafting to this great central depôt the produce of his labours, and then bearing it away again, to feed the millions of New England and of the distant seaboard cities, and even to aid the deficient supplies of Old England and France. [Sidenote: _Evidence of Outward Religion._]