She was neither haughty, cold, proud, nor censorious, but, having been taught good principles, she was very firm in the maintenance of good resolutions. She despised not nobility, ancestry, honorable distinctions, birth, parentage, valour, goodly person, manners, nor acquirements; she only preferred good, solid, sound sense, humility, and a right dependence upon God; not so much in words, but in life, character, conduct, and actions. She considered faith best shown by works such as these; and if she found them not, she did not value the possessor of any other qualities, as having those qualifications to render her earthly career comfortable. There were many who, if they had understood this secret bent of her youthful mind, might have tried the tricks of hypocrisy to have won the prize; but, to the honor of that age, such species of hypocrites were then very few; and though, they may now be discerned more quickly than they were, yet true love only can possess the power to perceive the arts of the pretenders to religion. There were some in that age who were such bigotted adherents to the mere outward forms of sanctity, such devoted slaves of the papal domination, that, had they known Ellen's secret, would undoubtedly have set her down for a heretic, and in revenge for their dismissal might have given information to the ecclesiastical authorities, who then interfered with the consciences of men as much as they did with their temporalities. This would have seemed to them but a mere species of duty which they owed to the church; and it was no difficult thing then for men to drive away every species of natural affection, however innocent or virtuous, under the idea of doing God service. Frequently the most malignant passions were vented in what was thought to be holy ardor. Even Ellen would have been sacrificed to the demoniac frenzy of a bigot, had she consented to be the wife of some of those whose consciences would have allowed her to have been made a just victim to the fiery stake. So powerfully operated that hideous principle of man, trusting his conscience in the hands of fallible man, without making the Word of God the ground-work of his direction. It is true that nothing but the superiorly-gifted and superiorly-educated mind of the maid of Freston Tower could have led her to adopt the course she did in this selection of a husband. It was wisdom, indeed, in her not to divulge the principle she acted upon to any one but her enlightened father, but, confiding in his honor, love, and wisdom, she had no fear of exposure. He was too true a father, too fond a parent, and naturally too noble a minded man, ever to demand of his daughter a sacrifice which she could not willingly, with her full consent, approve.