and
accepting Christ as the only God we know or need to consider.

As Mrs. Stowe during her adult life was an invalid, it is interesting
to have Mrs. Beecher's testimony that, on her arrival, she was met by
a lovely family of children and "with heartfelt gratitude," she says,
"I observed how cheerful and healthy they were." When Harriet was ten
years of age, she began to attend the Litchfield Academy and was
recognized as one of its brightest pupils. She especially excelled in
writing compositions and, at the age of twelve, her essay was one of
two or three selected to be read at a school exhibition. After
Harriet's had been read, Dr. Beecher turned to the teacher and asked,
"Who wrote that composition?" "Your daughter, Sir," was the reply. "It
was," says Mrs. Stowe, "the proudest moment of my life."

"Can the immortality of the soul be proved by the light of Nature?"
was the subject of this juvenile composition, a strange choice for a
girl of twelve summers; but in this family the religious climate was
tropical, and forced development. As might have been expected, she
easily proved that nothing of immortality could be known by the light
of nature. She had been too well instructed to think otherwise. Dr.
Beecher himself had no good opinion of 'the light of nature.' "They
say," said he, "that everybody knows about God naturally. A lie. All
such ideas are by teaching." If Harriet had taken the other side of
her question and argued as every believer tries to to-day, she would
have deserved some credit for originality. Nevertheless the form of
her argument is remarkable for her years, and would not have
dishonored Dr. Beecher's next sermon. This amazing achievement of a
girl of twelve can be read in the Life of Mrs. Stowe by her son.

From the Litchfield Academy, Harriet was sent to the celebrated Female
Seminary established by her sister Catharine at Hartford, Conn. She
here began the study of Latin and, "at the end of the first year, made
a translation of Ovid in verse which was read at the final exhibition
of the school." It was her ambition to be a poet and she began a play
called 'Cleon,' filling "blank book after blank book with this drama."
Mrs. Fields prints six pages of this poem and the specimens have more
than enough merit to convince one that the author might have attained
distinction as a poet. Her energetic sister Catharine however put an
end to this innocent diversion, saying that she must not waste her
t