nce.

What she thought reasonable--Christianity, modified by the world's
progress--was her tenet, and she had no scruple in partaking in any act
of worship; while naturally conscientious, and loving all the virtues,
she viewed the terrors of religion as the scourge of the grovelling and
superstitious; or if suffering existed at all, it could be only as
expiation, conducting to a condition of high intellect and perfect
morality. No other view, least of all that of a vicarious atonement,
seemed to her worthy of the beneficence of the God whom she had set up
for herself.

Thus had she rested for twenty years; but of late she had been
dissatisfied. Living with Phoebe, 'though the child was not naturally
intellectual,' there was no avoiding the impression that what she acted
and rested on was substantial truth. 'The same with others,' said Miss
Fennimore, meaning her auditor himself. 'And, again, I cannot but feel
that devotion to any system of faith is the restraint that Bertha is
deficient in, and that this is probably owing to my own tone. These
examples have led me to go over the former ground in the course of the
present spring; and it has struck me that, if the Divine Being be not the
mere abstraction I once supposed, it is consistent to believe that He has
a character and will--individuality, in short--so that there might be one
single revelation of absolute truth. I have not thoroughly gone through
the subject, but I hope to do so; and when I mark what I can only call a
supernatural influence on an individual character, I view it as an
evidence in favour of the system that produced it. My exposition of my
opinions shocks you; I knew it would. But knowing this, and thinking it
possible that an undoubting believer might have influenced Bertha, are
you willing to trust your sisters to me?'

'Let me ask one question--why was this explanation never offered before
to those who had more right to decide?'

'My tenets have seldom been the subject of inquiry. When they have, I
have concealed nothing; and twice have thus missed a situation. But
these things are usually taken for granted; and I never imagined it my
duty to volunteer my religious sentiments, since I never obtruded them.
I gave no scandal by objecting to any form of worship, and concerned
myself with the moral and intellectual, not the religious being.'

'Could you reach the moral without the religious?'

'I should tell you that I have seldom reare