"By God, Sir, we can not afford to persecute the Quakers," said a certain
American a long while ago. "Their religion may be wrong, but the people
who cling to an idea are the only people we need. If we must persecute,
let us persecute the complacent."

Harriet Martineau had all the restless independence of will that marked
her ancestry. She set herself to acquire knowledge, and she did. When she
was twenty she spoke three languages and could read in four. She knew
history, astronomy, physical science, and it crowded her teacher in
mathematics very hard to keep one lesson in advance of her. Besides, she
could sew and cook and "keep house." Yet it was all gathered by labor and
toil and lift. By taking thought she had added cubits to her stature.

But at twenty, a great light suddenly shone around her. Love came and
revealed the wonders of Earth and Heaven. She had ever been of a religious
nature, but now her religion was vitalized and spiritualized. Deity was no
longer a Being who dwelt at a great distance among the stars, but the
Divine Life was hers. It flowed through her, nourished her and gave her
strength.

Renan suggests that one reason why religion remains on such a material
plane for many is because they have never known a great and vitalizing
love--a love where intellect, spirit and sex find their perfect mate. Love
is the great enlightener. And in my own mind I am fully persuaded that
comparatively few mortals ever experience this rebirth that a great love
gives. We grope our way through life. Nature's first thought is for
reproduction of the species; she has so overloaded physical passion that
men and women marry when the blood is warm and intellect callow. Girls
marry for life the first man that offers, and forever put behind them the
possibilities of a love that would enable them to lift up their eyes to
the hills from whence cometh their help. Very, very seldom do the years
that bring a calmer pulse reveal a mating of mind and spirit.

When love came to Harriet, she began to write, her first book being a
little volume called "Devotional Exercises." These daily musings on Divine
things and these sweetly limpid prayers were all written out first for
herself and her lover. But it came to her that what was a help to them
might be a help to others. A publisher was found, and the little work had
a large sale and found appreciative readers for many years.

Today, out under the trees, I read this first book wr