‘I was engaged to attend a religious conference at the end of a week. I did not quite like to give it up, for there might possibly be some hope of help, though I felt there was none. My friends begged me to go,—there was just a chance. I went,—but almost turned back after I had started, for I was so broken down I could not restrain my tears, and I was ashamed to be seen. Well, I met there [some] men of powerful mind, leaders of thought in their different departments, who had gone through periods of darkness, but had waited for the dawn, and now they believed.... After two days I told my grief to a sympathising friend, who was surprised at my wretchedness, and her calm faith gave me a little calmness too. So the day before we were to leave I ventured to tell all my trouble to the clergyman who had invited me. I think I may dare to say that my faith has come back—not as it was before, but more spiritual; once more I can say the Creed, and I think I shall be able to teach again....’
The ‘religious conference’ was at Stoke, a little village in Shropshire, where the rector, the Rev. Rowland Corbet, was in the habit of gathering some who were earnestly studying the difficult questions of the day. Miss Beale wrote of these gatherings in the letter already quoted:—
‘There are only about twelve staying in the house. No one is put out of the synagogue for not seeing the truth, and they are not afraid to ask questions, but none are invited who are not supposed to be seeking for the light.’
That a door to the light was at this conference quickly opened for Miss Beale may be seen in the letters she wrote, on her return to Cheltenham after it was over, to the friends who had helped her so much:—
‘August 19, 1882.
‘Dear Mr. Corbet,—I could not say one word of thanks this morning: I think you understood.
‘It is good for us tempest-tossed people to see the restful faith of the veterans who come to help us. Certainly the old ship in which I have somehow sailed upon the waves for so many years is a wreck. I must try to believe He will set my feet upon a rock.
‘Yesterday things began to get clearer: your kind and patient explanations of the alphabet of the spiritual made me follow the discussion better afterwards, and I felt I could begin again to join in the Church’s Creed with a deeper meaning than before. I suppose one can’t expect to come out of the grave at once,—but how different is this Saturday from last, it seems as if some æon had gone by. I don’t know yet what I think, except that I believe I shall see the light and rise and always remain, yours very gratefully,
D. Beale.’
To Mrs. Russell Gurney:—