Before long the divan and all the settees and chairs
are fill'd; many fashionables out of curiosity; all the principal
dignitaries of the town, Gen. Jeremiah Johnson, Judge Furman, George
Hall, Mr. Willoughby, Mr. Pierrepont, N.B. Morse, Cyrus P. Smith,
and F.C. Tucker. Many young folks too; some richly dress'd women;
I remember I noticed with one party of ladies a group of uniform'd
officers, either from the U.S. Navy Yard, or some ship in the stream,
or some adjacent fort. On a slightly elevated platform at the head of
the room, facing the audience, sit a dozen or more Friends, most of
them elderly, grim, and with their broad-brimm'd hats on their heads.
Three or four women, too, in their characteristic Quaker costumes and
bonnets. All still as the grave.
At length after a pause and stillness becoming almost painful, Elias
rises and stands for a moment or two without a word. A tall,
straight figure, neither stout nor very thin, dress'd in drab cloth,
clean-shaved face, forehead of great expanse, and large and clear
black eyes,[42] long or middling-long white hair; he was at this time
between 80 and 81 years of age, his head still wearing the broad-brim.
A moment looking around the audience with those piercing eyes, amid
the perfect stillness. (I can almost see him and the whole scene
now.) Then the words come from his lips, very emphatically and slowly
pronounc'd, in a resonant, grave, melodious voice, _What is the chief
end of man? I was told in my early youth, it was to glorify God, and
seek and enjoy him forever.
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