historical life of man,' she said (ii. 363), 'is the larger half of
culture;' and this sympathy, which was the fruit of her culture, had by
the time she was thirty become the new seed of a positive faith and a
semi-conservative creed. Here is a passage from a letter of 1862 (she
had translated Strauss, we may remind ourselves, in 1845, and Feuerbach
in 1854):--

Pray don't ask me ever again not to rob a man of his religious
belief, as if you thought my mind tended to such robbery. I have
too profound a conviction of the efficacy that lies in all
sincere faith, and the spiritual blight that comes with no-faith,
to have any negative propagandism in me. In fact, I have very
little sympathy with Freethinkers as a class, and have lost all
interest in mere antagonism to religious doctrines. I care only
to know, if possible, the lasting meaning that lies in all
religious doctrine from the beginning till now (ii. 243).

Eleven years later the same tendency had deepened and gone farther:--

All the great religions of the world, historically considered,
are rightly the objects of deep reverence and sympathy--they are
the record of spiritual struggles, which are the types of our
own. This is to me preeminently true of Hebrewism and
Christianity, on which my own youth was nourished. And in this
sense I have no antagonism towards any religious belief, but a
strong outflow of sympathy. Every community met to worship the
highest Good (which is understood to be expressed by God) carries
me along in its main current; and if there were not reasons
against my following such an inclination, I should go to church
or chapel, constantly, for the sake of the delightful emotions of