"1867. I am more and more disgusted with the preaching that I hear!... Why cannot a man act himself, be himself, and think for himself? It seems to me that naturalness alone is power; that a borrowed word is weaker than our own weakness, however small we may be. If I reach a girl's heart or head, I know I must reach it through my own, and not from bigger hearts and heads than mine. "March, 1873. There was something so genuine and so sincere in George Macdonald that he took those of us who were _emotional_ completely--not by storm so much as by gentle breezes.... What he said wasn't profound except as it reached the depths of the heart.... He gave us such broad theological lessons! In his sermon he said, 'Don't trouble yourself about what you _believe_, but _do_ the will of God.' His consciousness of the existence of God and of his immediate supervision was felt every minute by those who listened.... "He stayed several days at the college, and the girls will never get over the good effects of those three days--the cheerier views of life and death. "... Rev. Dr. Peabody preached for us yesterday, and was lovely. Everyone was charmed in spite of his old-fashioned ways. His voice is very bad, but it was such a simple, common-sense discourse! Mr. Vassar said if that was Unitarianism, it was just the right thing. "Aug. 29, 1875. Went to a Baptist church, and heard Rev. Mr. F. 'Christ the way, the only way.' The sermon was wholly without logic, and yet he said, near its close, that those who had followed him must be convinced that this was true. He said a traveller whom he met on the cars admitted that we all desired heaven, but believed that there were as many ways to it as to Boston. Mr. F. said that God had prepared but one way, just as the government in those countries of the Old World whose cities were upon almost inaccessible pinnacles had prepared one way of approach. (It occurred to me that if those governments possessed godlike powers, they would have made a great many ways.) "Mr. F. was very severe upon those who expect to be saved by their own deserts. He said, 'You tender a farthing, when you owe a million.' I could not see what they owed at all! At this point he might well have given some attention to 'good works;' and if he must mention 'debt,' he might well remind them that they sat in an unpaid-for church! "It was plain that he relied upon his anecdotes for the hold upon his audience, and the anecdotes were attached to the main discourse by a very slender thread of connection. I felt really sad to know that not a listener would lead a better life for that sermon--no man or woman went out cheered, or comforted, or stimulated. "On the whole, it is strange that people who go to church are no worse than they are!