Whitman's own reference to this meeting is still more striking. He says that he, a boy of ten, was allowed to go to the Hicks meeting because he "had been behaving well that day." The "principal dignitaries of the town" attended this meeting, while uniformed officers from the United States Navy Yard graced the gathering with their presence. The text was, "What is the chief end of man?" Whitman says: "I cannot follow the discourse, it presently becomes very fervid and in the midst of its fervor, he takes the broad-brim hat from his head and almost dashing it down with violence on the seat behind, continues with uninterrupted earnestness. Though the differences and disputes of the formal division of the Society of Friends were even then under way, he did not allude to them at all. A pleading, tender, nearly agonizing conviction and magnetic stream of natural eloquence, before which all minds and natures, all emotions, high or low, gentle or simple, yielded entirely without exception, was its cause, method and effect. Many, very many, were in tears."[217] [217] "The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman." Issued under the editorial supervision of his Literary Executors, 1902, Vol. 3, p. 258. With the account of this journey of 1829 his narrative in the "Journal" closed. This paragraph formed a fitting benediction: "The foregoing meetings were times of favor, and as a seal from the hand of our gracious and never-failing helper, to the labor and travail which he has led me into, and enabled me to perform, for the promotion of this great and noble cause of truth and righteousness in the earth, as set forth in the foregoing account, and not suffering any weapon formed against me to prosper. 'This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.' For all these unmerited favors and mercies, in deep humiliation my soul doth magnify the Lord, and return thanksgiving and glory to his great and excellent name; for his mercy endureth forever."[218] [218] "Journal," p. 438. It should be remembered that Elias Hicks was then past his eighty-first year. He started on this last long religious visit, Sixth month 24th, and was therefore absent from home one week less than five months. He says himself, in the last sentence of the "Journal": "We traveled in this journey nearly fifteen hundred miles." These are words as impressive as they are simple. During this trip many families were visited from the Valley of the Genesee to the City of New York, where he tarried several days that he might see his friends in their homes. Whatever may have been their mind in the case, he doubtless felt that they would look upon his face no more. But Elias Hicks was not yet free from his religious concerns, for on First month 21, 1830, he asked for a minute, which was granted by Jericho Monthly Meeting, and is as follows: