"[I]n the spring and summer of 1828 I set to work on Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity and read it straight through. Intercourse with my saintly elder sister Anne had increased my mental interest in religion and she though generally of Evangelical sentiments had an opinion that the standard divines of the English Church were of great value. Hooker's exposition of the claims of the Church of England came to me as a mere abstraction: but I think that I found the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, theretofore abhorred, impossible to reject and the way was thus opened for further changes."