Her conviction that the highest moral conduct, and the most unselfish goodness, and the noblest aspirations, are in no degree connected with any kind of creed, was aided and supported, no doubt, by her warm personal affection for Mr. Atkinson, and some other of her friends of his way of thinking, in whom she found aspirations as lofty and feelings as admirable as ever she had enjoyed communion with, together with a complete rejection, on scientific grounds, of all theology. Her belief now was that-- The best state of mind was to be found, however it might be accounted for, in those who were called philosophical atheists.... I knew several of that class--some avowed, and some not; and I had for several years felt that they were among my most honored acquaintances and friends; and now I knew them more deeply and thoroughly, I must say that, for conscientiousness, sincerity, integrity, seriousness, effective intellect, _and the true religious spirit_, I knew nothing like them. Her own "true religious" earnestness was unabated. _Eastern Life_ contains abundance of evidence that the spirit in which she now wrote against all theological systems was exactly at one with that in which she had twenty years before written _Addresses, Prayers and Hymns_. Her intellectual range had become far wider; her knowledge of human nature and of the history and conditions of mankind had vastly increased; but her religious earnestness--that is to say, her devotion to truth, and her emotional reverence for her highest conceptions of goodness and duty--was as fervent as ever. Notwithstanding the boldness and heterodoxy of _Eastern Life_, it did not cause much outcry; and her two next books were amongst the most successful of all her works. The first of these was _Household Education_; the second, _A History of the Thirty Years' Peace_. The former was partly written for periodical publication during 1847 in the _People's Journal_, for which magazine she wrote also a few desultory articles.