Shifting the center of gravity from pulpits to parsonages, and from confident sermons to whispered doubts, this family narrative humanizes the Eliot saints, demystifies their liberal religion, and lifts up the largely unsung female vocation of practical ministry.

Spanning 150 years from the early 19th century forward, the narrative probes the women's defining experiences: the deaths of numerous children, the anguish of infertility, persistent financial worries, and the juggling of the often competing demands that parishes make on first ladies.

Here, too, we see the matriarch's...