The event was a calamity to the road as well as to the passengers and their friends. The managers had prided themselves on the success and completeness of their system. The small number of accidents on the line had been noticed, but the sudden and terrible calamity eclipsed all this, and now the grief was great and widespread. The horror was overwhelming and the excitement high. It was impossible to know this without feeling it as a personal affliction, and no doubt the sense of it led to the death of the man who, of all others, was the most sensitive and sympathetic. The attention of religious people to the spiritual wants of the survivors is worthy of mention. Clergymen called and conversed with them as opportunity was offered. The survivors were hardly able at first to give expression to their feelings, as the confusion of the place was so great. Several were crowded into the same room. The wounds inflicted on the head prevented connected thoughts. The pains and weakness, and the shock to the nervous system rendered the condition of nearly every one critical, for several days. It seemed uncertain whether they might not sink away under the terrible reaction and depression caused by the excitement and exposure. Wounds and bruises which no one supposed they had, were felt, and new ones discovered every day. But as one and another were removed to separate rooms, the conversations and prayers brought out the deeper feelings which had been hidden. It was with great solemnity that one and another would recount the peculiar method of escape. More than one said that he thought “his time had come.” One said that he did not expect to live, and that he took his card in his hand that his name might be recognized if he should die. The suddenness of death was full of solemnity to all. Even the most reckless and hardened were subdued. One young man in a spirit of bravado as he entered the room of a companion, uttered an oath; but the gentleman addressed arose in bed, lame and wounded as he was, and with solemn voice and determined manner, exclaimed: “I will not permit the name of God to be used in that way in my presence--especially at such a time as this.” The young man felt the rebuke, and turned around hid his face, and soon retired. A few days after, he came back and said that “he had not arisen from his bed a morning without thanking God for preserving his life,” and apologized for having spoken as he did. A gentleman and his wife who had escaped from the “Palatine,” were together at the “American House,” happy in being spared to each other, peaceful, loving and grateful; but they were especially delighted to receive a letter from their pastor in the distant East, and read, to those who called, sentences from it so glowing with that pastor’s affection and sympathy.