1853-1859] My Mother's Letters on Religion 173 



In our childhood and youth she was not only sincerely 

 religious this she always was in the true sense of the word- 

 but definite in her beliefs. She went regularly to church 

 and took the Sacrament. She read the Bible with us and 

 taught us a simple Unitarian Creed, though we were bap- 

 tized and confirmed in the Church of England. In her youth 

 religion must have largely filled her life, and there is evidence 

 in the papers she left that it distressed her, in her early 

 married life, to know that my father did not share her 

 faith. She wrote two letters to him on the subject. He 

 speaks in his autobiography of " her beautiful letter to 

 me, safely preserved, shortly after our marriage." In this 

 she wrote : 



The state of mind that I wish to preserve with respect 

 to you, is to feel that while you are acting conscientiously 

 and sincerely wishing and trying to learn the truth, you 

 cannot be wrong; but there are some reasons that force 

 themselves upon me, and prevent my being always able 

 to give myself this comfort. I daresay you have often 

 thought of them before, but I will write down what has 

 been in my head, knowing that my own dearest will indulge 

 me. Your mind and time are full of the most interesting 

 subjects and thoughts of the most absorbing kind, viz. fol- 

 lowing up your own discoveries, but which make it very 

 difficult for you to avoid casting out as interruptions other 

 sorts of thoughts which have no relation to what you are 

 pursuing, or to be able to give your whole attention to both 

 sides of the question. 



There is another reason which would have a great effect 

 on a woman, but I don't know whether it would so much on 

 a man. I mean E. [Erasmus], whose understanding you 

 have such a very high opinion of and whom you have so 

 much affection for, having gone before you. Is it not likely 

 to have made it easier to you and to have taken off some of 

 that dread and fear which the feeling of doubting first gives, 

 and which I do not think an unreasonable or superstitious 

 feeling ? It seems to me also that the line of your pursuits 

 may have led you to view chiefly the difficulties on one side, 

 and that you have not had time to consider and study the 



