This religious attitude was not unusual, nor merely conventional and unmeaning. All the Sedgwick family seem to have been constitutionally religious. The mother was almost painfully meek in her protest against her husband's embarking upon a public career; Mr. Sedgwick has been deterred from joining a church only by some impossible articles of puritan divinity, but cannot die happy until he has received the communion from Dr. Channing; "both my sisters were very religious," says Miss Sedgwick; while the letters I have quoted from two of her brothers, young lawyers and men of the world, have the devoutness of the psalms. "I can never be sufficiently grateful to my Maker for having given me such a sister," says Robert; and Theodore: "selfish, unthankful as I am, the tears are in my eyes, and I thank God that I have such a sister." Of course one can use a religious dialect without meaning much by it, but these Sedgwicks were cultivated people, who thought for themselves, and did not speak cant to each other.

Since it was a religious impulse that turned Miss Sedgwick's mind to literature, it is worth while to follow the thread of her spiritual history. This was written at the age of twenty when she was looking for a religious experience that never came, and would have considered herself one of the wicked: "On no subject would I voluntarily be guilty of hypocricy, and on that which involves all the importance of our existence I should shrink from the slightest insincerity. You misunderstood my last letter. I exposed to you a state of mind and feeling produced, not by religious impressions, but by the convictions of reason." Of course "reason" was no proper organ of religion; but besides this defect, her interest in serious things was liable to interruption "by the cares and pleasures of the world" and, perhaps worst of all, "I have not a fixed belief on some of the most material points of our religion." One does not see how a person in this state of mind should have anything to call "our religion." She seems to have advanced much further in a letter to her brother Robert, three years later: "I long to see you give your testimony of your acceptance of the forgiving love of your Master.

... God grant, in his infinite mercy, that we may all touch the garment of our Savior's righteousness and be made whole."

The editor of these letters tells us that Miss Sedgwick is now a member of Dr. Mason's church in New York city, having joined at the age of twenty, or soon after the letter in which she says she is not satisfied on certain points of doctrine. Dr. Mason is described as an undiluted Calvinist, "who then was the most conspicuous pulpit orator in the country—a man confident in his faith and bold to audacity." Miss Sedgwick stands the strong meat of Calvinism ten years, when we have this letter. "I presume you saw the letter I wrote Susan, in which I said that I did not think I should go to Dr. Mason's Church again.... You know, my dear Frances, that I never adopted some of the articles of the creed of that church and some of those upon which the doctor is fond of expatiating, and which appear to me both unscriptural and very unprofitable, and, I think, very demoralizing."

What perhaps stimulated the zeal of Dr. Mason to insist upon doctrines always objectionable to Miss Sedgwick, was an attempt then being made to establish a Unitarian church in New York city. She has not joined in the movement, but does not know but it may come to that. It is a critical moment in Miss Sedgwick's history, and it happened at this time she went to hear Dr. Mason's farewell sermon. "As usual," she says, "he gave the rational Christians an anathema. He said they had fellowship with the devil: no, he would not slander the devil, they were worse, etc." Very possibly this preaching had its proper effect upon many hearers, and they gave the "rational Christians" a wide berth, but it precipitated Miss Sedgwick into their ranks. She was not then a thorough-going Unitarian, saying, "there are some of your articles of unbelief that I am not Protestant enough to subscribe to"; a little more gentleness on the part of Dr. Mason could have kept her, but she could not stand "what seems to me," she says, "a gross violation of the religion of the Redeemer, and an insult to a large body of Christians entitled to respect and affection."

She joined the tabooed circle in 1821, and wrote from Stockbridge, "Some of my friends here have, as I learn, been a little troubled, but after the crime of confessed Unitarianism, nothing can surprise them"; she longs to look upon a Christian minister who does not regard her as "a heathen and a publican." An aunt, very fond of her, said to her, one day as they were parting, "Come and see me as often as you can, dear, for you know, after this world we shall never meet again."

These religious tribulations incited her to write a short story, after the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, to contrast two kinds of religion, of one of which she had seen more than was good. The story was to appear as a tract, but it outgrew the dimensions of a tract, and was published as a book under the title of "A New England Tale." It is not a masterpiece of literature but, like all of Miss Sedgwick's works, it contains some fine delineations of character and vivid descriptions of local scenery. It can be read to-day with interest and pleasure. As a dramatic presentation of the self-righteous and the meek, in a New England country town a century ago, it is very effective. "Mrs. Wilson" is perhaps a more stony heart than was common among the 'chosen vessels of the Lord,' but so the Pharisee in the parable may have been a trifle exaggerated. The advantage of this kind of writing is that you do not miss the point of the story.

Miss Dewey says The New England Tale gave Miss Sedgwick an "immediate position in the world of American literature." Her brother Theodore wrote, "It exceeds all my expectations, fond and flattering as they were"; her brother Harry, "I think, dear Kate, that your destiny is fixed. As you are such a Bibleist, I only say don't put your light under a bushel." That the book did not fall still-born is evident when he says further, "The orthodox do all they can to put it down." On the other hand, her publisher wanted to print a cheap edition of 3,000 copies for missionary purposes. I should like to see that done to-day by some zealous liberal-minded publisher.

The New England Tale appeared in 1822, when Cooper had only published "Precaution" and "The Spy." In 1824, Miss Sedgwick published "Redwood," of which a second edition was called for the same year, and which was republished in England and translated into French. It reached distinction in the character of Deborah Lenox, of which Miss Edgworth said, "It is to America what Scott's characters are to Scotland, valuable as original pictures." Redwood was reviewed by Bryant in the North American, in an article which, he says, was up to that time his "most ambitious attempt in prose." "Hope Leslie" appeared in 1827. It was so much better than its predecessors, said the Westminster Review, that one would not suppose it by the same hand. Sismondi, the Swiss historian, wrote the author a letter of thanks and commendation, which was followed by a life-long friendship between these two authors. Mrs. Child, then Miss Francis and the author of "Hobomok" and "The Rebels," wrote her that she had nearly completed a story on Capt. John Smith which now she will not dare to print, but she surrenders with less reluctance, she says, "for I love my conqueror." "Is not that beautiful?" says Miss Sedgwick. "Better to write and to feel such a sentiment than to indite volumes."

"Clarence" was