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Having secured the services of Clerc, Mr. Gallaudet lost no time in returning to America.

Within three weeks, or as soon as Mr. Clerc could complete his arrangements for leaving home and friends, they sailed from Havre on the 18th of June.

The records of Mr. Gallaudet's stay in Paris show that he lived a life of intense activity during the fourteen weeks that he remained there.

The best hours of every available working day were devoted to the school-rooms of the institution for deaf-mutes. Private lessons from competent teachers supplemented these zealous labors. Time was found for numerous social engagements and some sight-seeing, and besides all this Mr. Gallaudet acted as pastor to an English speaking congregation, preaching no less than fifteen sermons, which were afterwards published in a volume.

A number of these sermons were prepared in Paris; and the entire collection, coming as it did from one with little previous experience as a preacher, received such high praise from the critics of the day as to call for more than a passing notice in this connection.

Mr. Gallaudet, in his dedicatory note to Mrs. Hannah More, with whom he had formed an intimate acquaintance while in England, speaks as follows of the sermons and the occasion of their delivery: (3)

Most of them were delivered while I was prosecuting in Paris, under the auspices of the venerable Abbe Sicard and his interesting pupil, Clerc, my present fellow-laborer, the object of qualifying myself to instruct an unfortunate and too long neglected portion of my countrymen, the deaf and dumb. Several of your Nation and my own, taught in their own lands to hallow the Sabbath of the Lord, felt a desire to do this in the splendid and voluptuous city where they had assembled, as their surest safeguard against its fascinating seductions, and, at the request of this little flock of strangers I became their temporary preacher in the Chapel of the Oratoire, to which we were kindly allowed access.

The volume, which was published in 1818, received warm commendation in America, but nowhere was it more highly approved than in England, in the columns of the Christian Observer, London, in July, 1818, two years before Sidney Smith flippantly inquired, "In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?"

The Observer, after a long extract from the closing sermon, which was one delivered at the opening of the school for deaf-mutes in Hartford in 1817, says:

From the length of this quotation it may possibly be inferred that we consider the last discourse as the best in the collection; and perhaps, at the moment in which we are writing these lines, there may be some justice in the remark, so far, at least, as regards the touching eloquence of the composition. But in truth a similar kind of impression has accompanied us in the perusal of almost every sermon in the volume. It is impossible to read one of them, without perceiving the deep seriousness of the writer, and the elevated character of his mind. His subjects are of high importance; and he appears to be capable of adorning any subject which falls within the range of his Christian ministrations. His views are scriptural and correct; his imagination lively, but under due control; his language, at all times, or with very rare and trifling exceptions, perspicuous, elegant and chaste, and often remarkable for its vivid and glowing eloquence; and the arrangement of his materials is so easy and natural, that every thing seems to have fallen without effort into its proper place. Many of his subjects are common, but he has the art of throwing over them an air of novelty; and while we consent implicitly to every statement as he proceeds, we do it with the sort of pleasure experienced by a traveler in passing on a road with which he was formerly acquainted, but the beauties of which he does not recollect to have sufficiently observed. He remembers the great features of the country around him, but there is a certain freshness in the air, or a luxuriance of vegetation, or a general liveliness in the landscape, which had hitherto in some way escaped him; and he is glad to dwell upon ancient recollections, with so many circumstances of additional interest and unexpected gratification.

It is, further, the uniform tendency of these discourses to invest Christianity with an amiable and dignified character. We feel that there is something ennobling in religion, and are almost compelled to love and to admire it. Some of the topics of inquiry would lead many preachers into the thorny paths of controversial disputation; but the mind of Mr. Gallaudet is of too high an order to be thus beguiled. He appears to have drunk of the pure streams of Christianity -- pure as they flow from the fountain of holy truth -- and the words which he speaks are words of truth and soberness. If his views be elevated, his religion is also practical; and few intelligent persons can peruse these discourses without perceiving both the reasonableness and the excellence of the principles which they inculcate. We venture in conclusion, to recommend them as admirable specimens of compositions for the pulpit -- equally remote from coldness and enthusiasm; animated, interesting, and judicious. And many as are the valuable sermons produced by the divines of our own country, we shall rejoice to be frequently favored by such importations from America.