Meanwhile William struggled to shake the thought of his mother spending her final years locked away in a nuthouse—a laughing academy, a funny farm.

This refers not to ordinary religious discourses for the edification of the church, but to such a forthspeaking of the mind of God in relation to truth, duty, or coming events ns the inward action of the Holy Spirit on the mind may produce.

a delicate thermometer

On a side note, my daughter (who gets it honestly from her mother) is a freeze baby. You rarely find either of them without socks on their feet.