"Miss Austin has the merit (in our judgment most essential) of being evidently a Christian writer: a merit which is much enhanced, both on the score of good taste, and of practical utility, by her religion being not at all obtrusive. She might defy the most fastidious critic to call any of her novels, (as Coelebs was designated, we will not say altogether without reason,) a "dramatic sermon." The subject is rather alluded to, and that incidentally, than studiously brought forward and dwelt upon."