April 17. 1842.—During my stay at Boston, I was fortunate enough to hear Dr. Channing preach one of the last sermons he delivered from the pulpit. His declining health had prevented him from doing regular duty of late years; but there seemed no reason to anticipate that he would so soon be taken away from a community over which he exerted a great and salutary influence. His sermon was less impressive than I had expected, and fell short of the high conception I had formed of him from his writings; but this I imputed entirely to his want of physical strength, and the weak state of his voice. I had afterwards the pleasure of conversing freely with him at a small dinner party on various subjects in which he was interested ; among others, the bearing of geological discoveries, respecting the earth's antiquity and the extinct races of animals, on the Mosaic account of the history of man and the creation. I was struck with the lively interest he took in the political affairs of Rhode Island, —a neighbouring state, containing about 110,000 inhabitants, and now convulsed by a revolutionary movement in favour of an extension of the suffrage. The sympathies of Dr. Channing appeared to lean strongly to the popular party, which, in his opinion, had grievances to complain of, however much, by their violent proceedings, they had put themselves in the wrong.