Page:Heroines of freethought (IA cu31924031228699).pdf/294

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286
FRANCES POWER COBBE.

ionist; for Miss Cobbe, in spite of her advanced Liberalism, is a most reverent Theist.

It is so recently that her name has become conspicuous in literature, that the press has not yet given that publicity to all the minor details of her previous life which it will probably yet give, and which is necessary to make even a condensed biographical sketch of any interest to the general public; but in this, I shall be only able to embody the odds and ends which have heretofore floated into various newspaper and magazine notices concerning her.

From these I have gleaned that she is a finely-educated, large-hearted, genial-natured Irish gentlewoman. What the influences were, outside of her own good sense and discriminating intellect, which led her to discard sectarianism in religion, I have had no means of finding out. The writings of Theodore Parker seem to have first produced a deep effect upon her mind by their broad, large-hearted views concerning God and humanity. From them she learned