The first Christians carried Christianity over all the pomp and power of the world simply by the unworldly life they lived. Nobody doubted where the true church was in those days. Christians were a set of people like nobody else in the world, and whenever and wherever and by whatever means that _kind of character_ that they had is created, it will have power. I like the Episcopal Church, but I cannot call it _the_ church till I see evidences that it answers practically the purpose of a church better than any other. For my part I go to hear a dreadfully heretical preacher on Sunday, who lectures in a black-coat in a hall, simply because he talks to me on points of duty, which I am anxious to hear discussed. Eva, poor child, wears down her health and strength with night after night in society, and spends all her money on dress; doing no earthly thing for any living creature, except in the pleasure-giving way, like a bird or a flower, and then is shocked and worried about me because I read scientific works on Sunday. I make conscience of good health, early hours, thick shoes, and mental and bodily drill, and subjection. Please God, I mean to do something worthy a Christian woman before I die, and to open a path through which weaker women shall walk out of this morass of fashion-slavery, and subjection, where they flounder now. I take for my motto that sentence from one of Dr. Johnson's allegories you once read to us: "No life pleasing to God that is not useful to man." I hope, my dear friend, I shall keep the spirit of Christ, though I wander from the letter. Such words as you have spoken to me, however, can never come amiss. Perhaps when I am old and wiser, like many another self-confident wanderer, I may be glad to come back to my mother's house, and then, perhaps, I shall be a stiff little church-woman. At all events I shall always be your loving and grateful pupil. IDA. [Eva Van Arsdel to Isabel Convers.] _My Dear Belle_: Thanks for your kind letter with all its congratulations and inquiries,--for though as yet I have no occasion for congratulation, and nothing to answer to inquiry, I appreciate these all the same. No--Belle, the "old sixpence" is not gone yet,--you will have to keep to your friend a while longer. I am not engaged, and you have full liberty to contradict that report everywhere and anywhere. Mr. Sydney is, of course, very polite, and very devoted, very much a friend of the family and all that, but I am _not_ engaged to him, and you need never believe any such thing of me till you hear it directly, under my own hand and seal.