' 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!
"Sept. 26, 1880. A clergyman said, in his sermon, 'I do not say with the
Frenchman, if there were no God it would be well to invent one, but I
say, if there were no future state of rewards and punishments, it would
be better to believe in one.
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