by the mocking spirit of Infidelity which she allows for the first time to darken her pages, and testify to the world her disbelief in the Divine revelation.”
But the shock given to her Christian friends by her “Eastern Life” was as nothing compared to that given them three years later by the publication of the letters between herself and H. G. Atkinson, ‘On the Laws of Man's Nature and Development,” in which she plainly avows her atheistical opinions.
"Miss Martineau's friend, Charlotte Bronte,” remarks a writer in Chambers's Journal, “grieved sadly over this declension on the part of one whom she admired as combining the highest mental culture with the nicest discharge of feminine duties. The book, she said, was the first exposition of avowed atheism and materialism she had ever read—the first unequivocal declaration of a disbelief of God or a future life. Hundreds, she said, had deserted Miss Martineau on account of this book; but this the au-
