Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/155

 might be allowed to pay my expenses in Boston. They maintained that I was their guest, and thus I paid not the slightest sum for my expensive and splendid living at the Revere House for three several days. And their manner of doing me this kindness, as “an honour and a pleasure to themselves;”—nay, my Agatha, I have never seen its equal before!

I took it almost as a certainty that my friends would find their little boy—“the baby”—dead; so violent had been the convulsions, into which he had been thrown, for he was teething: and Rebecca expected to hear at the door of her home the words, “He is not here! he has arisen!”

The day after their arrival, however, came to me a telegraphic message, with the words, “Dear Friend! Rejoice with us. Baby better. Danger nearly over.

“MARCUS.”&emsp;

What heartfelt pleasure this afforded me!

In the evening I went with Benzon and Bergfalk, together with a young Mr. K., an agreeable and witty man, a friend of the S——s, to a concert given by the “Musical Fund Society,” and was admitted by a free ticket, which would admit myself and my friends during the whole of the winter. And there I heard Beethoven's Fourth Symphony excellently performed by a numerous orchestra. The second adagio in this seized upon me with extraordinary power. Ah! who taught this man thus to understand the inmost life of the heart, its strivings upwards, its depressions and re-ascendings, its final conflict, resolute endeavour, and ultimate victory? No instrumental music makes upon me a more profound impression than this glorious adagio. Its tones were to me like the history of my own soul.

On Sunday I again heard Theodore Parker preach. He made a full and free confession of his faith, and I