merit and thought appeared from her pen in 1860, under the title of
_Thoughts in Aid of Faith_. In this work she follows her brother, Strauss,
Feuerbach and Spencer in an interpretation of religion, which constantly
recalls the theories of George Eliot. In a series of more recent books she
has continued the same line of thought. The early and intimate friendship
of Marian Evans and Miss Hennell may explain this similarity of opinion,
and the beliefs they held in common were doubtless developed to a greater
or less extent even when the former lived in Coventry.

Another friend of this period was a German scholar by the name of Brabant,
resident in England, a friend of Strauss, Paulus, Coleridge and Grote.
Grote described him as "a vigorous self-thinking intellect." A daughter of
Dr. Brabant first undertook the translation of Strauss, and she it was who
married Charles Hennell. After this marriage Miss Evans offered to take to
Dr. Brabant the place of his daughter, and did act as his housekeeper for
some months.

Marian Evans was surrounded at the most impressible period of her life by
this group of intellectual, free-thinking people, who seem to have fully
indoctrinated her with their own opinions. None of them had rejected
Christianity or theism, but they were rationalists in spirit, and eager
students of philosophy and science. Here were laid the foundations of the
doctrines she afterwards held so strongly, and even during this period very
many of the theories presented in her books were fully developed. Here her
mind was thoroughly prepared for the teachings of Comte, Spencer and Lewes;
and her early instructors had gone so far in their lessons that the later
teachers had little to do more than to give system to her thoughts.

It was essential to George Eliot's novel-writing that she was educated
amidst religious influences, and that she earnestly accepted the religious