CHAPTER V

THE RELIGIOUS SANCTION: "SUGGESTIONS FOR THOUGHT"

(1860)

It fortifies my soul to know That, though I perish, Truth is so: That, howsoe'er I stray and range, Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change. I steadier step when I recall That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall. A. H. CLOUGH.

The life and work of Miss Nightingale, as described in the foregoing chapters of this Memoir, were such as were unlikely to have proceeded from any one who was not possessed by some strong spiritual impulse. It was a life devoted to work, and in that work she sought and found herself. Yet from what is ordinarily called "self-seeking" her work was conspicuously free. The body was so weak that the wonder is how a woman in delicate health was able to perform so much of what Sidney Herbert called "a man's work" in the world. She was supported, sustained, inspired by great spiritual force and energy, which drove her to seek self-satisfaction in a dedicated life of work, and which in its turn found expression in a form of religion, independently attained and intensely held.

In a previous