Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER V A Trip Into Virginia Fifty Years Ago Baltimore was seen for the first time when, as a boy, in company with a clerical committee of which my father was a member, a visit was made to that city in the interests of a certain newly-formed missionary society. I was particularly anxious to see for myself the celebrated Fort Henry, from the ramparts of which the American flag floated in that attack upon it in the War of 1812, which inspired the poet, Francis Key, to write our national song, "The Star Spangled Banner." So I stole away by myself and prowled around the city, while my elders and superiors were having committee meetings with the Rev. Dr. Johns, of Emmanuel church, the Rev. Dr. Grammer and others. We went to the Rev. Dr. Cummins's church (afterwards Bishop Cummins, of the Reformed Episcopal church), and I remember how he announced the hymn, "Softly now the Light of Day," as if it were pronounced "Haftly now the Light of Day." The little boy also remembered that the doctor seemed to look right up into a certain corner of the ceiling, as if he drew all his inspiration from some unperceived angel, apparently hidden behind a vast fan-like ventilator, ancl he wanted very much, as he sat in his pew in church, to form a company of investigation and exploration into the mysteries of that great and mysterious church loft, up to which the preacher in the pulpit directed his fixed right eye! Dr. Grammer was also a very popular pulpit orator in those days, though upon a very different plane fromthat of his brilliant and gifted son, the Rev. Carl E. Grammer, the present rector of St. Stephen's church, Philadelphia. He shook his head at the youthful visitor, and expressed the gravest doubts as to whether he would ever become as good a man as his father, and warned the somewh...