And now, as I am nearing the end of my narrative, this seems to be the place to say a few words relative to the religious views into which the two sisters finally settled. We have followed them through their various conflicts from early youth to mature age, and have seen in their several changes of belief that there was no fickleness, no real inconsistency. They sought the truth, and at different times thought they had found it. But it was the truth as taught in Christ Jesus, the simple doctrine of the Cross they wanted, the preaching and practice of love for God, and for the meanest, the weakest, the lowest of His children. The spiritual conflicts through which they passed, prepared them to see the nothingness of all outward forms, and they came at last to reject the so-called orthodox creed, and to look only to God for help and comfort.
During the entire period of Sarah's connection with religious organizations, and even from her very first religious impressions, she found it difficult to accept the doctrine of the Atonement; and yet she professed and tried to think she believed it, but only because the Bible, which she accepted as a revelation from God, taught it. That her reason rebelled against it is shown in her frequent prayers to be delivered from this great temptation of the arch enemy, and her deep repentance whenever she lapsed into a state of doubt. The fear that she might come to reject this fundamental dogma was—at least up to the time when she was driven from the Quaker Church—one of her most terrible trials, causing her at intervals more agony than all else put together. But the worshipful element was so strong in Sarah that she could not, even after her reason had satisfied her conscience on this point, give up this Christ at whose feet she had learned her most precious lessons of faith and meekness and gentleness and long-suffering, and whom she had accepted and adored as her intermediary before an awful Jehovah. In her whole life there appears to me nothing more beautiful than this full, tender, abiding love of Jesus, and I believe it to have been the inspiration always of all that was loveliest and grandest in her character. In one of her letters, written while at Belleville, she says:—
"I cannot grasp the idea of an Infinite Being; but, without perplexing myself with questions which I cannot solve, everything around me proclaims the presence and the government of an intelligent, law-abiding Law-giver, and I believe implicitly in his power and his love. But I must have the Friend of sinners to rest in."
And again: "In one sense, as Creator and Benefactor, I feel this Infinite Being to be my Father, but I want a Jesus whom I can approach as a fellow creature, yet who is so nearly allied to God that I can look up to Him with reverence, and love Him and lie in His bosom."
And later, in a letter to Gerrit Smith, she says:—
"God is love, and whoso dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. O friends, but for this faith, this anchor to the soul both sure and steadfast, I know not what would have become of us in the sweep which there has been of what we called the doctrines of Christianity from our minds. They have passed away like the shadows of night, but the glorious truth remains that the Lord of love and mercy reigns, and great peace have they who do His will."
Their increasingly liberal views, and their growing indifference to most of the established forms in religion, drew upon them the severe censure of their Charleston relatives, and finally, when, about 1847, it came to be known that they no longer considered the Sabbath in a sacred light, their sister Eliza wrote to them that all personal intercourse must end between them and her, and that her doors would be forever closed against them. Angelina's answer, covering four full pages of foolscap, was most affectionate; but, while she expressed her sorrow at the feeling excited against them, she could not regret that they had been brought from error to truth. She argued the point fully, patiently giving all the best authorities concerning the substitution of the Christian for the Jewish Sabbath, and against their sister's assertion that the former was a divine institution.
"When I began to understand," she says, "what the gift of the Holy Spirit really was, then all outwardisms fell off. I did not throw them off through force of argument or example of others, but all reverence for them died in my heart. I could not help it; it was unexpected to me, and I wondered to find even the Sabbath gone. And now, to give to God alone the ceaseless worship of my life is all my creed, all my desire. Oh, for this pure, exalted state, how my soul pants after it! In my nursery and kitchen and parlor, when ministering to the common little wants of my family, and encountering the fretfulness and waywardness of my children, oh, for the pure worship of the soul which can enable me to meet and bear all the little trials of life in quietness and love and patience. This is the religion of Christ, and I feel that no other can satisfy me or meet the wants of human nature. I cannot sanction any other, and I dare not teach any other to my precious children."
Thus it came to pass with them and with Theodore also, that to love Jesus more, and to follow more and more after him, became the sum of their religion. With increasing years and wider experiences, their views broadened into the most comprehensive liberality, but the high worship of an infinite God, and the sweet reverence for his purest disciple never left them.