imagination. But nature itself, she thought, would be no better than a
vast blank, if the mind of the observer did not supply it with an
animating soul. When she walked amidst the wonders of nature, she was
accustomed to converse with her God. To her mind he was pictured as not
less amiable, generous and kind, than great, wise and exalted. In fact,
she had received few lessons of religion in her youth, and her religion
was almost entirely of her own creation. But she was not on that account
the less attached to it, or the less scrupulous in discharging what she
considered as its duties. She could not recollect the time when she had
believed the doctrine of future punishments. The tenets of her system
were the growth of her own moral taste, and her religion therefore had
always been a gratification, never a terror, to her. She expected a
future state; but she would not allow her ideas of that future state to
be modified by the notions of judgment and retribution. From this
sketch, it is sufficiently evident, that the pleasure she took in an
occasional attendance upon the sermons of Dr. Price, was not accompanied
with a superstitious adherence to his doctrines. The fact is, that, as
far down as the year 1787, she regularly frequented public worship, for
the most part according to the forms of the church of England. After
that period her attendance became less constant, and in no long time was
wholly discontinued. I believe it may be admitted as a maxim, that no
person of a well furnished mind, that has shaken off the implicit
subsection of youth, and is not the zealous partizan of a sect, can
bring himself to conform to the public and regular routine of sermons
and prayers.

Another of the friends she acquired at this period, was Mrs. Burgh,
widow of the author of the Political Disquisitions, a woman universally
well spoken of for the warmth and purity of her benevolence. Mary,
whenever she had occasion to allude to her, to the last period of her