Florence Nightingale - Was she a freethinker?

Did you notice that the Google Logo showed the 'Lady with the Lamp' today? - May 12th

In her biography 'Life of Florence Nightingale' Sir Edward Cook described her as a "fervent Theist, but entirely outside Christianity."

She was also a respectable Victorian woman careful of her reputation but read on:-

.......... he observes that "she had little interest in rites and ceremonies as such, and she interpreted the doctrines of Christianity in her own way". In 1896 she wrote in a letter "The Church is now more like the Scribes and Pharisees than like Christ. . . . What are now called the `essential doctrines' of the Christian religion he [Christ] does not even mention."

In 1873 she wrote two articles on religion "in which she is not less outspoken". Curiously enough, the Unitarians have included a pamphlet on her (Florence Nightingale as a Religious Thinker, 1914) in their "Penny Library," in which the author, W G. Tarrant, quotes her saying: "I am so glad that my God is not the God of the High Church or of the Low; that he is not a Romanist or an Anglican-or a Unitarian".

From a biographical sketch in the book 'Women Without Superstition, "No Gods No Masters" by Annie Laurie Gaylor

Sue