Page:Heroines of freethought (IA cu31924031228699).pdf/299

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FRANCES POWER COBBE.
291

as delightful a companion as she is heroic in her great work of social reform.”

I hope that she may live to do yet more effective work in liberalizing public sentiment than she has done even by her “Intuitive Morals,” though I am far from underestimating the value of this excellent work. It has done, and is destined to do, a great work in awakening thought in that great multitude who, though loving the light better than darkness, have yet been content to accept their faith second-handed from those who have set themselves up as their teachers, without inquiry from the taught as to the validity of such self-asserted claims. It does not lead entirely out of the darkness of Biblical theology and religious prejudice, but it is a long step toward the light. It needed a large amount of moral courage in any one professing to be a believer in Christianity, much more in a woman belonging to refined and cultivated Christian circles, to make the daring avowals contained in this book. The intellect which