out of the daily life of those who never pray; a personal God who is
not a Providence is a superfluity; when from the heaven does not smile
a listening Father, it soon becomes an empty space, whence resounds no
echo of man's cry. I could then reach no loftier conception of the
Divine than that offered by the orthodox, and that broke hopelessly
away as I analysed it.

At last I said to Mr. Scott, "Mr. Scott, may I write a tract on the
nature and existence of God?"

He glanced at me keenly. "Ah, little lady, you are facing, then, that
problem at last? I thought it must come. Write away."

While this pamphlet was in MS. an event occurred which coloured all my
succeeding life. I met Charles Bradlaugh. One day in the late spring,
talking with Mrs. Conway--one of the sweetest and steadiest natures
whom it has been my lot to meet, and to whom, as to her husband, I owe
much for kindness generously shown when I was poor and had but few
friends--she asked me if I had been to the Hall of Science, Old
Street. I answered, with the stupid, ignorant reflection of other
people's prejudices so sadly common, "No, I have never been there. Mr.
Bradlaugh is rather a rough sort of speaker, is he not?"

"He is the finest speaker of Saxon-English that I have ever heard,"
she answered, "except, perhaps, John Bright, and his power over a
crowd is something marvellous. Whether you agree with him or not, you
should hear him."

In the following July I went into the shop of Mr. Edward Truelove,
256, High Holborn, in search of some Comtist publications, having come