We seated ourselves in a shady arbor, where the doctor entertained us further with an account of his religious belief. He had, he said, no fixed creed and no established religion: there were in the colony Protestants, Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, indeed Christians of every name, and even Jews. Every one was at liberty to hold what faith he pleased: he preached only natural religion, and whoever shaped his life according to that would be happy. After this he enlarged on the prosperity of the colony, which was founded on the principles of natural religion, and prosed about humility, love to our neighbor, kindness and carrying religion into everything; and then back he came to Nature and himself, until my head was perfectly bewildered. I had given up long before this, in despair, any questions as to the interior organization of the colony, for the doctor either gave me evasive answers or none at all. His colonists, he asserted, loved him as a father, and he cared for them accordingly: both these assertions were undoubtedly true. The deep respect with which those whom we occasionally met lifted their hats to "the doctor"--a form of greeting by no means universal in America--bore witness to their unbounded esteem for him. Toward us also they demeaned themselves with great respect, as to noble strangers whom the doctor deigned to honor with his society. As to his care for them, no one who witnessed it could deny the exceedingly flourishing condition of the settlement. Whether, however, in all this the doctor had not a keen eye to his own interest was an afterthought which involuntarily presented itself. As we left the orchard, the doctor pointed out to us several wheat-fields in the neighborhood, cultivated with true German love for neatness, which formed, with the pleasant dwellings adjoining, separate farms. The average yield per acre, he observed, was from twenty-five to forty bushels of wheat, and from forty to fifty of oats. He then took us into a neighboring grove, to a place where the pic-nics and holiday feasts of the colony are held: here we paused near a grassy knoll shaded by a sort of awning and surrounded by a moat. This, which bears the name of "The Temple Hill," forms the centre of a number of straight roads, which branch out from it into the woods in the shape of a fan. Not far from it I noticed a dancing ground covered by a circular open roof, and a pavilion for the music.