hem birth, than the earnestness with which she
dwelt, on this as the great and real remedy for all the ills of life. On
one occasion she appeared to apply it to herself in speaking of the short
space of life that lay before her, and the large amount of achievement
that must be laid aside as impossible to compress into it--and the sad,
gentle tones in which the word _resignation_ was uttered, still vibrate on
the ear." [Footnote: Contemporary Review, February, 1881.] Not only
renunciation but resignation was by her held to be a prime requisite of a
truly moral life. Man must renounce many things for the sake of humanity,
but he must also resign himself to endure many things because the universe
is under the dominion of invariable laws. Much of pain and sorrow must come
to us which can in no way be avoided. A true resignation and renunciation
will enable us to turn pain and sorrow into the means of a higher life. In
_Adam Bede_ she says that "deep, unspeakable suffering may well be called
a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state." She teaches
that man can attain true unity with the race only through renunciation,
and renunciation always means suffering. Self-sacrifice means hardship,
struggle and sorrow; but the true end of life can only be attained when
self is renounced for that higher good which comes through devotion to
humanity. Her noblest characters, Maggie Tulliver, Romola, Jubal, Fedalma,
Armgart, attain peace only when they have found their lives taken up in the
good of others. To her the highest happiness consists in being loyal to
duty, and it "often brings so much pain with it that we can only tell it
from pain by its being what we would choose before everything else, because
our souls see it is good."

George Eliot's religion is without God, without immortality, without a
transcendent spiritual aim and duty. It consists in a humble submission to
the invariable laws of the universe, a profound love of humanity, a
glorification of feeling and affection, and a renunciation of personal and
selfish desires for an altruistic devotion to the good of the race. Piety
without God, renunciation without immortality, mysticism without the
supernatural, everywhere finds eloquent presentation in her pages. Offering
that which she believes satisfies the spiritual wants of man, she yet
rejects all the legitimate objects of spiritual desire. Even when her
characters hold to the most fervent faith, and use with