rt good to see the generous and delighted interest
which the G.'s and D.'s, and indeed many more, take in the phenomenon of
the lectures. The truth is, that their attention to the matter, and
the intelligence of the people, and the merits of the lecturer, must
be combined to account for such an unprecedented and beautiful
audience,-larger, and much more select, they say, than even Thackeray's.
I'll send you a newspaper slip or two, if I can lay my hand upon them,
upon the last lecture, which, assembled (the audience, I mean), under
a clouded sky, and in face of a threatening thunder-gust, was a greater
wonder, some one said, than any I undertook to explain.

Bah! what stuff to write I But all this is such an agreeable surprise
to me, and will, I think, give me so much better a reward for this weary
journey and absence than I expected, that you must sympathize what you
can with my dotage.

As to the "Corruptions of Christianity," dear, if you don't find enough
of them about you,--and you may not, as you live with your mother
mostly,--you will find them in the library somewhere. There were, I
think, two editions, one in one volume, and another in two. There are a
hundred in the world.

The Club mentioned in this letter was that of which my father wrote in
his Reminiscences: "This Charleston Club, then, I think, forty years
old, was one of the most remarkable, and in some respects [236] the most
improving, that I have ever known. An essay was read at every meeting,
and made the subject of discussion. One evening at Dr. Gilman's was read
for the essay a eulogy upon Napoleon III. It was written con amore, and
was really quite sentimental in its admiration,--going back to his very
boyhood, his love of his mother, and what not. I could not help touching
the elbow of the gentleman sitting next me and saying, Are n't we a
pretty set of fellows to be listening to such stuff as this? He showed
that he thought as I did. When the reading was finished, Judge King,
who presided, turned to me and asked for my opinion of the essay. I was
considerably struck up,' to be the first person asked, and confessed
to some embarrassment. I was a stranger among them, I said, and did
not know but my views might differ entirely from theirs. I was not
accustomed to think myself illiberal, or behind the progress of opinion,
and I knew that this man, Louis Napoleon, had his admirers, and perhaps
an increasing number of them; but if I must speak,--and