There Is No Unbelief
palms in California, where she had been living. The face is decidedly prepossessing, though a little pathetic, and there is pathos in the way she holds her head. Mrs. Case stated to Dr. Barton that in 1878 she was on the staff of the Detroit Free Press, and had been for several years. About 1880, her husband was transferred to Wilmington, Delaware, and later to California. Mrs. Case lived in California for a number of years, but finally came east again, and died, presumably in Baltimore, in 1911.
For many years “There Is No Unbelief” went the rounds of the press, and was read from hundreds of pulpits, and included in scores of compilations. It was usually accredited to Bulwer-Lytton, but sometimes Elizabeth Barrett Browning was named as its author, sometimes Charles Kingsley—sometimes even John Luckey McCreery! Finally, on August 1, 1905, Mrs. Lizzie York Case told, in the Detroit Free Press, the whole story of how she was inspired to write the poem.
Briefly, her story was this:
One morning, “about twenty-seven years ago”—that is to say, about 1878—she was breakfasting with a zealous young clergyman, who questioned her as to her religious belief. She told him that she had always clung to the faith of her fathers and was a Quakeress. Upon which her companion hastened to assure her
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