20.

I got to my lodgings barely in time to save myself from Sabbath desecration.

On this day I did not call on the Monarch of Spirits. In the morning I attended divine service. The temple I went to was frequented by one of the greatest orators of the age; the priest, besides, was one holding a high ecclesiastical office, and I fairly expected to hear a sermon that would accord with the presence of the orator and the promise of the priest; but, in his first sentence, the reverend speaker made an anticlimax. A great defender of the church was there, but the sermon mauled and murdered its chiefest doctrines. A deep theologian was in a prominent position, but the divine strangled himself in the trinity. Nevertheless, I was much edified. A splendid apotheosis of one of the nation's kings was painted on the ceiling, and outside the building, the apotheosis of his successor had been practically effected.

I missed my matchless friend in my travels this day, and resolved that he should accompany me on a similar occasion.