But preparing for a journey of four thousand miles, with wife and children, was itself work enough for a time. There were a hundred things to be bought, which you would need in your new and far off home. And there were a thousand things which you already had, to be packed, and as many more to be set aside, to be destroyed, or sold, or given away. And there were a thousand letters and papers to be examined, and a judgment formed, as to which should be preserved, and which should perish in the flames. And there were visits to be paid and repaid, and there were partings, and regrets, and tears. But all was over at length, and we were on our way to the world beyond the flood. It was pleasant to get away from one's religious and political opponents, but painful to part with so many devoted friends, who had proved their affection for me and for my family by so many sacrifices, and their steadfastness in times of so much trial. But I had hopes of keeping up my intercourse with them through the Press, and of ministering to their gratification and improvement by sending them accounts of all I saw or learnt of an interesting character in the land to which I was going. I had also hopes that a quiet home, in a retired and peaceful part of a new country, might prove conducive to my own improvement and happiness. One of the objects I had in view in going to America was to obtain a little quiet for calm reflection on the course I had so long been pursuing, and a sober consideration of the position which I had reached. I was not satisfied that the changes which had taken place in my views and way of life, since my separation from the Church and the ministry, had all been changes for the better. I had had suspicions for some time, that amidst the whirl of perpetual excitement in which I had lived, and the continual succession of angry contests in which I had been engaged, I had probably missed my way on some points, and I wished for a favorable opportunity of ascertaining whether these suspicions were well grounded or not. But when I got to America I found myself in a condition less friendly to calm reflection and to a just and impartial review of my past history, than the one from which I had fled. The very day we landed in New York we fell in with the Hutchinson family. I had become acquainted with them in England, and had spent some time in their company, and had attended some of their concerts at Leeds. They were to sing that night in New York, and we attended the performance, and were delighted with their sweet wild music, and with their wisdom and their wit. They were all reformers of the radical school, and though their songs and conversation were not immoral or profane, they were advanced beyond the bounds of religion, into the neutral ground of Latitudinarianism.