in America, just imagine that you lecture
to-night in London, to-morrow in Paris, then in Berlin, then in Vienna,
then in Constantinople, then in Teheran, then in Bombay, and so forth.
With this difference, that if you had to undertake the work in Europe,
at the end of a week you would be more dead than alive.

[Illustration: "THE GOOD, ATTENTIVE, POLITE CONDUCTOR OF ENGLAND."]

But here you are not caged on the railroad lines, you can circulate.
There is no fear of cold, no fear of hunger, and if the good, attentive,
polite railway conductors of England could be induced to do duty on
board the American cars, I would anytime go to America for the mere
pleasure of traveling.

CHAPTER XL.

EASTER SUNDAY IN NEW YORK.

_New York, April 6 (Easter Sunday.)_

[Illustration: A BELLOWING SOPRANO.]

This morning I went to Dr. Newton's church in Forty-eighth Street. He
has the reputation of being one of the best preachers in New York, and
the choir enjoys an equally great reputation. The church was literally
packed until the sermon began, and then some of the strollers who had
come to hear the anthems moved on. Dr. Newton's voice and delivery were
not at all to my taste, so I did not sit out his sermon either. He has a
big, unctuous voice, with the intonations and inflections of a showman
at the fair. He has not the flow of ideas that struck me so forcibly
when I heard the late Henry Ward Beecher in London; he has not the
histrionic powers of Dr. Talmage, either. There was more show than
beauty about the music, too. A bellowing, shrieking soprano overpowered
all the other voices in the choir, including that of a really beautiful
tenor that deserved to be heard.

* * * * *

New York blossoms like the rose on Easter Day. Every woman has a new
bonnet and walks abroad to show it.

[Illustration: SOME EASTER BONNETS.]

There are grades in millinery as there are in society. The imported
bonnet takes the proudest rank; it is the aristocrat in the world of
headgear. It does not always come with the conqueror (in one of her
numerous trunks), but it always comes to conquer, and a proud, though
ephemeral triumph it enjoys, perched on the dainty head of a New York
belle, and supplemented by a frock from Felix's or Redfern's.

It is a unique sight, Fifth Avenue on Easter Sunday, when all the
up-town churches have emptied themselves of their gayly garbed
worshipers.

[Illustration: K