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country. He is a good man I hope he will be our next president. Gen. Casey's daughters have left for the North. 

Mon. 8th    Went to Mrs [[Peales?]] yesterday before church. saw a poor woman who had come to Washington to learn something about her husband. He has been taken prisoner in the last engagement at Winchester.

Friday June 13th    A visit from Mr Welling. He thought the anticipated battle at Richmond would be probably the last great encounter we should have. A guerrilla warfare might be maintained for ten years or more. In the course of conversation Father asked Mr. Welling if he knew Mr. [[Gibbs?]] the author of a hoax which had recently appeared in the papers in account of a man who had _______ & drinking the contents was [[??]] petrified also of an animal formed for [[??]] on the side of a hill with one set of legs shorter than the other. Mr. W said he did not like such jokes that ridiculed the doctrine of final causes, a good doctrine & worthy of respect. Father of course believed in the doctrine but thought it might be carried to far he did not believe in being called to admire as beautiful designs of a Divine Providence what after all were only petty imagining of men Mr W said [[l?]] in his [[Position?]] Philosophy argued that there was no design in nature that things are as 
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they are, from a simple necessity of their being. because an eye sees there was no necessity for supposing it was made for the purpose of seeing. Father said that since, should he construct an instrument for seeing according to the known rules of optics, he should form one similar in all essential respects to the human eye, he could not but conclude that said eye was originally designed for the purpose of sight. He said he was certain of the existence of our soul at least in the universe __ one mind his own & from this one fixed indisputable fact be reasoned from analogy there were other minds like his own & then to the great controlling [[intellect ?]] of the Diety. _______||Mr. W. spoke of the [[?]] of the Hon. Mr. [[Mccan?]] of Kentucky the ablest man now in the senate. He had been a boatman until twenty one years of age. 

Dr. Hays has just come under the window to tell us all the churches in the city are to be taken as hospitals.

Sat. June 14th    A visit from Mrs. Calvert & Hon. Mr. Mallory of Kentucky. Mrs. Calvert had heard from her daughter she was at Richmond she [[married?]] a daughter of Judge Campbell [[we?]] [[saw?]] her last spring just after the difficulties with the south [[commenced?]] she was very disconsolate then at being separated from her betrothed. The 
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