"It was a very long discourse, but admirable. The subject was 'repentance,' a hackneyed one enough.... He explained the effect of habit, and its increasing power over the mind, as a law of our nature, with as much clearness and as philosophically as he could have done had he been explaining the doctrine to a class of university students in a lecture on the philosophy of the human mind. But then the practical application was enforced by a strain of real eloquence, of a very energetic, natural, and striking description.... But, unfortunately, every here and there he seemed to feel that he was sinning against some of the Calvinistic doctrines of his school, and all at once there was some dexterous pleading about 'original sin,' which interfered a little with the free current of the discourse.... Upon the whole, however, judging from this single specimen, I think I would sooner hear him again than any preacher I ever heard, Reginald Heber not excepted." At this time Lyell was keeping a journal, which was forwarded to Miss Horner, then in Germany, to serve apparently as a substitute for ordinary letters; home news, disturbances arising from the struggle over the Reform Bill, visits of friends, geological researches, walks on the hills to search for plants or for insects, the habits of the Kinnordy bees, or the accomplishments of two parrots, brought from Africa by his naval brother--all being jotted down just as they occurred. Among this _farrago_--though not of nonsense--geological topics, since Miss Horner had similar tastes, occupy a considerable space. She, however, evidently was, comparatively speaking, a beginner, and in one or two characteristic sentences her lover and preceptor passes from information to counsel: "If you are not frightened by De la Beche, I think you are in a fair way to be a geologist; though it is in the field only that a person can really get to like the stiff part of it. Not that there is really anything in it that is not very easy, when put into plainer language than scientific writers choose often unnecessarily to employ." He also records[51] a piece of advice from his old friend, Dr. Fleming, which is enough to make a modern professor of geology sigh for "the good old times." He said to Lyell: