Botanists -- United States -- Correspondence; Gray, Asa, 1810-1888 -- Correspondence
... We walked across this eastern part of the city down to the Tower,
entered the gates and walked over the grounds. It was too late to get
entrance to the armory or any of the interesting places, as the light
was beginning to fail. I went back to Mr. Ward’s, at Well-close Square,
according to promise, to name some plants for him, but Dr.
Valentine,[74] a most ingenious vegetable anatomist and microscopist,
being in town (had previously met him at Lindley’s), Mr. Ward had
foregone his own advantage and invited Valentine and Quekett to meet me
with their microscopes, so that the evening was very instructive to me,
which I had not anticipated. Mr. Ward seems to have taken a fancy to me,
for I can hardly imagine that he takes so much pains to oblige every
one, absorbed as he is also in medical practice. He presented me with a
beautiful botanical digger of fine polished steel, with a leathern
sheath, which I suspect he has had made on purpose for me; though I
don’t know why he should have thought of it. Mrs. Ward was inquiring
about the Abbotts and their works, one of which she had, which makes her
wish for more. I am often asked about Mr. Abbott, whose works seem much
more generally known here than those of any other American religious
author. I must find some for Mrs. Ward.
Sunday evening, March 3.--I went this morning to hear, perhaps for the
last time, Baptist Noel. The sermon was from the last three verses of
the same psalm (Ps. ciii.) from which he has preached on the former
occasions when I have heard him in his own church; and truly a good
sermon it was. I have told you that the chapel is a large one. Yet it is
so well filled that I have always had some difficulty in getting a seat,
and to-day I actually stood near the pulpit during the whole service and
sermon. But it is worth while submitting to some inconvenience. In the
afternoon I walked up to Tottenham Court Road, and looked up the chapel
built by Whitfield, the scene of his useful labors in London. If you
read, as I think you did, Philip’s “Life of Whitfield,” you must take
some interest in this place.[75] I found the chapel a large but
outlandish building, with an inscription over one of the entrances,
stating that the building was erected by George Whitfield. Within is a
tablet to the memory of Mrs. Whitfield, who is buried here, and a
monumental inscription to Whitfield himself (which I regret I did not
copy), mentioning the date of his death at Newburyport, near Boston. The
preacher this afternoon (for I believe there is more than one who
officiates here) was the Rev. Mr. Wight, who gave an impressive,
practical sermon from the concluding clause of the last verse of Romans
viii.: “The love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It was, I
think, rather above his audience, which I am sorry to say was
exceedingly small. Indeed I hope it is generally better filled, but I
should not have expected so great a falling off in the attendance of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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