ches,
theaters, concerts, and temperance, peace, and prison-reform conventions
within my reach. I had never lived in such an enthusiastically literary
and reform latitude before, and my mental powers were kept at the
highest tension. We went to Chelsea, for the summer, and boarded with
the Baptist minister, the Rev. John Wesley Olmstead, afterward editor of
_The Watchman and Reflector_. He had married my cousin, Mary Livingston,
one of the most lovely, unselfish characters I ever knew. There I had
the opportunity of meeting several of the leading Baptist ministers in
New England, and, as I was thoroughly imbued with Parker's ideas, we had
many heated discussions on theology. There, too, I met Orestes Bronson,
a remarkably well-read man, who had gone through every phase of
religious experience from blank atheism to the bosom of the Catholic
Church, where I believe he found repose at the end of his days. He was
so arbitrary and dogmatic that most people did not like him; but I
appreciated his acquaintance, as he was a liberal thinker and had a
world of information which he readily imparted to those of a teachable
spirit. As I was then in a hungering, thirsting condition for truth on
every subject, the friendship of such a man was, to me, an inestimable
blessing. Reading Theodore Parker's lectures, years afterward, I was
surprised to find how little there was in them to shock anybody--the
majority of thinking people having grown up to them.

While living in Chelsea two years, I used to walk (there being no public
conveyances running on Sunday) from the ferry to Marlborough Chapel to
hear Mr. Parker preach. It was a long walk, over two miles, and I was so
tired, on reaching the chapel, that I made it a point to sleep through
all the preliminary service, so as to be fresh for the sermon, as the
friend next whom I sat always wakened me in time. One Sunday, when my
friend was absent, it being a very warm day and I unusually fatigued, I
slept until the sexton informed me that he was about to close the doors!
In an unwary moment I imparted this fact to my Baptist friends. They
made all manner of fun ever afterward of the soothing nature of Mr.
Parker's theology, and my long walk, every Sunday, to repose in the
shadow of a heterodox altar. Still, the loss of the sermon was the only
vexatious part of it, and I had the benefit of the walk and the
refreshing slumber, to the music of Mr. Parker's melodious voice and the
deep-toned or