But the subject with which the name of Dorothea Beale as a teacher will ever be associated is that of Holy Scripture. For this her greatest force was reserved. This was the soul of her work, as any who listened to her lessons with a hearing ear, or who marked the deep reverence prevailing in her class, could not fail to observe. Trammelled she was in many ways, at first by the narrowness which had almost prevented her coming to Cheltenham; increasingly, as time went on, by the numbers of her hearers who held opposing views on religion or who had no views at all; much always by her own dread of ‘offending’ or of hindering an earnest seeker for truth by a positive assertion. These causes made it inevitable that her teaching should seem to many vague or insufficient, since she could not bear to miss putting herself beside those who were as babes, unable to venture a step into the untried. An old pupil has well described this attitude:— ‘She did not go very much into every sort of detail, but I wonder what use can be made of doctrinal details by people whose general scheme of things is one into which they don’t fit? and that, I suppose, is the trouble of most people who are puzzled by such things at all. Whereas Miss Beale, in anticipation of this difficulty, always seemed to me to set forth a spiritual construction of the universe, into which no spiritual truth learned afterwards could possibly fail to fit, supposing it to be a truth in very deed. I do not see how any teacher can possibly do a greater work; though I do not say for a moment that she did no more.’ Certainly in the weekly lesson to the whole First Division of the school she did a great deal more. Another old pupil may be quoted here:— ‘Speaking for myself, I can say without hesitation that it was from her that I learned the truth of the sacramental life. One thing she said to me, and she repeated it with emphasis at the time of my Confirmation, is as fresh in my mind to-day as the day she said it. Again, I can say for myself, and my reading has been fairly wide, that her influence has been entirely against any weakening of faith. Knowing something at least of her character and intellectual power, it was natural to feel that where she was steadfast one need not be afraid. More than that, her direct teaching by its sympathetic insight into the deepest aspects of life was always, and always will be inspiring. If it is true that there was something vague in her utterances, I believe it was because she had reached a plane of thought where the words which have become the current thought of everyday life are inadequate forms of expression.’