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grand and beautiful. One might delight himself there for hours with mere
listening and looking. Though we procured no shells such as we were seeking,
yet we botanized extensively, and returned loaded with flowers. The woods
& openings, & sand-hills & rocks are covered with blossoms – many of them ex-
-ceedingly beautiful, rich even to gorgeousness. Dr. Andrews – brother of E. W. – has
gathered more than 60 species since January. I brought back yesterday 30
different species – 6 of them new ones to us. They formed one of the most at-
-tractive bouquets that ever eye beheld. Till the dry season comes in force
we shall be in no want of these beautifully links of wreathed flowers in the
chain of things that connects us with the immaterial and the invisible. How apt
an emblem is the odor of a sweet-scented blossom, of the aspirations of a pure &
loving heart! The transfer from putrefying filth, & noisome smells, to a clean field
enamelled with flowers, whose fragrance fills the air, is not more grateful to the sense
– than is, to the soul, the change from the foul vapors & reeking miasmas of moral
corruption, to the heavenly breathings, the sweet unconscious influences, of a chastened
mind, awed, elevated, & hallowed by a cheerful, genial, all-pervading sacredness. The
bright grains of gold that strew the river-beds & glisten in the sands – may teach a
lesson from God – but how much more forceful, after all, is the language of
these golden flower-monitors that strew our fields, & woods, & rolling-prairies! While
they last in their present profusion California can not be an uninviting land.

The emigration still continues, I perceive, quite briskly
from all the Eastern ports. I am glad to see that so many ladies & so many fam-
-ilies are coming – they are much needed for many reasons, and can now be
made tolerably comfortable. I trust the past has been the worst year we shall ever see.
"Circumstances" can surely never be so bad again. In what state I shall find
my affairs on my return, I know not. What has become of my little church
& my Congregation – & my S. [Sabbath] School children – and all the interests of religion
as depending on me, I can not say. I have concerned myself little about them of
late. I was obliged to forget them as much as possible – both for my sake
and theirs – so far as they were concerned in my well-being, & being well-to-do ~