The alarming progress of ritualism in the 'eighties disturbed her
considerably, though it inspired some of her more weighty verses. They
should be favourites with Dr. Clifford and Canon Hensley Henson:--

Some men in our days cover over
A body deformed with their sin:
A cross worked in various colours,
Forgetting that God looks within.

Alas! in our churches at present
Simplicity seems quite despised;
To represent things far above us
Are heathenish customs revived.

This evil is spreading among us,
And where will it end, can you tell?
Join not with the misled around us,
Take warning, my readers . . .

The veneration of the Blessed Virgin goaded her into composition of
stanzas unparalleled in the whole literature of Protestantism:--

My readers, can you nowhere see
A parallel to Israel's sin?
The House of God, at home, abroad:
_Idols are there_--that house within.

Who incense burns? are strange cakes made?
What woman's chapel, decked with gold,
Stands full of unchecked worshippers