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CHAPTER III.
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.–MARGARET'S EARLY CRITICS.–FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH MR. EMERSON.
It was to be expected that in such a correspondence as that between Margaret and James Freeman Clarke the chord of religious belief would not remain untouched. From Margaret's own words, in letters and in her journal, we cleanly gather that her mind, in this respect, passed through a long and wide experience. Fortunate for her was, in that day, the Unitarian pulpit, with its larger charity and freer exegesis. With this fold for her spiritual home, she could go in and out, finding pasture, 'while by the so-called Orthodox sects she would have been looked upon as standing without the bounds of all religious fellowship.
The requirements of her nature were twofold. A religious foundation for thought was to her a necessity. Equally necessary was to her the untrammelled exercise of critical judgment, and tie thinking her own thoughts, instead of accepting those of other people. We may feel sure that Margaret, even to save her own soul, would not and could not have followed any confession of faith in opposition to her own best judgment. She
