FRIDAY, SEPT. 18. A bearer of dispatches from Commodore Stockton to our government is to leave to-morrow morning in the Erie, and we are all busy in writing letters home by him. The Erie is to take the dispatch-bearer to Panama, and then proceed to the Sandwich Islands. We have not received any letters from home since we sailed from Callao; the year has rolled from the buds of spring into the sear leaf of autumn since any intelligence has reached us from those we love. Death may have stricken them into the grave, but the sad tidings is yet a melancholy secret. We ought to have a regular mail between the United States and California. We seem remarkably eager to possess ourselves of foreign territory, and then leave the wild geese to convey all intelligence. If the land is only ours, and those at home can hear from it once in fifty or a hundred years, that will do; a more frequent communication would be quite superfluous. Had we possessed Egypt in the days of Cheops, all information would still be considered seasonable which should come when his pyramid had crumbled. SATURDAY, SEPT. 19. I encountered to-day a company of Californians on horseback, bound to a pic-nic, each with his lady love on the saddle before him. He, as in duty bound, rides behind, throws his feet forward into the stirrups, his left hand holds the reins, his right encircles and sustains her, and there she rides safe as a robin in its nest; sprigs of evergreen, with wild-flowers, wave in her little hat, and larger clusters in his; both are gayly attired, and smiles of light and love kindle in their dark expressive eyes. Away they gallop over hill and valley, waking the wild echoes of the wood. One of my hunting dogs glanced at them for a while, and seemed so tickled, he had to plunge into the bushes to get rid of his mirth. SUNDAY, SEPT. 20. At the invitation of Captain Richardson, I preached this afternoon on board the Brooklyn. The crew assembled in the cabin, which the captain had converted for the occasion into a chapel. None attended by compulsion, but all were present of their free will. The good order and respectful attention which prevailed showed the spirit which pervaded the ship, and conveyed a testimony of the wise and Christian conduct of the captain which none could mistake. I have never met with a ship where a greater degree of harmony and alacrity in duty were observable; all this, too, without any resort to physical force; such is the result of moral influence when brought into full play. Give us more of this in the navy.