Such a cave at hand, which you can enter any day, is worth a thousand of our churches which are open only on Sundays,—hardly long enough for an airing,—and then filled with a bustling congregation. A church where the priest is the least part, where you do your own preaching, where the universe preaches to you and can be heard. I am not sure but this Catholic religion would be an admirable one if the priest were quite omitted. I think that I might go to church myself sometimes, some Monday, if I lived in a city where there was such a one to go to. In Concord, to be sure, we do not need such. Our forests are such a church, far grander and more sacred. We dare not leave our meetinghouses open for fear they would be prophaned. Such a cave, such a shrine, in one of our groves, for instance, how long would it be respected—for what purposes would it be entered, by such baboons as we are? I think of its value not only to religion, but to philosophy and poetry; beside a Reading Room to have a Thinking Room in every city! Perchance the time will come when every house even will have not only its sleeping rooms, and dining room, and talking room or parlor, but its Thinking Room also, and the architects will put it into their plans. Let it be furnished and ornamented with whatever conduces to serious and creative thought. I should not object to the holy water, or any other simple symbol, if it were consecrated by the imagination of the worshippers.

I heard that some Yankees bet that the candles here were not wax but tin. A European assured them that they were wax; but inquiring of the sexton he was surprised to learn that they were tin filled with oil. The church was too poor to afford wax. As for the protestant churches, here, as elsewhere, they did not interest me, for it is only as caves that churches interest me at all, and in that respect they were inferior.

Montreal makes the impression of a larger city than you had expected to find, though you may have heard that it contains nearly sixty thousand inhabitants. In the newer parts it appeared to be growing fast like a small New York, and to be considerably Americanized. The names of the squares reminded you of Paris—the Champ de Mars, the Place deArmes, and others, and you felt as if a French revolution might break out any moment. Glimpses of Mount Royal rising behind the town, and the names of some streets in that direction made one think of Edinburgh. That hill sets off this city wonderfully. I inquired at a principal bookstore for books published in Montreal. They said that there were none but school books, and the like, they got their books from the States. From time to time we met a priest in the streets, for they are distinguished by their dress, like the civil police. Like clergymen generally, with or without the gown, they made on us the impression of effeminacy. We also met some Sisters of Charity, dressed in black, with Shaker-shaped black bonnets and crosses, and cadaverous faces, who looked as if they had almost cried their eyes out,—their complexions parboiled with scalding tears; insulting the daylight by their presence, having taken an oath not to smile. By cadaverous, I mean that their faces were like the faces of those who have been dead and buried for a year, and then untombed, with the lifees grief upon them, and yet, for some unaccountable reason, the process of decay arrested.

"Truth never fails her servant, Sir, nor leaves him With the dayes shame upon him.