to hear the discussion
of grave questions, both in politics and religion. I have seen gentlemen
at my father's table get as warm over a theological point of dispute as
in talking over their political differences. I rather think it has
always been very much so, in bad as well as in good company; for you
remember how Milton's fallen angels amused themselves with disputing on
"providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate," and it was the same thing in
that club Goldsmith writes so pleasantly about. Indeed, why should not
people very often come, in the course of conversation, to the one subject
which lies beneath all else about which our thoughts are occupied? And
what more natural than that one should be inquiring about what another
has accepted and ceased to have any doubts concerning? It seems to me
all right that at the proper time, in the proper place, those who are
less easily convinced than their neighbors should have the fullest
liberty of calling to account all the opinions which others receive
without question. Somebody must stand sentry at the outposts of belief,
and it is a sentry's business, I believe, to challenge every one who
comes near him, friend or foe.

I want you to understand fully that I am not one of those poor nervous
creatures who are frightened out of their wits when any question is
started that implies the disturbance of their old beliefs. I manage to
see some of the periodicals, and now and then dip a little way into a new
book which deals with these curious questions you were talking about, and
others like them. You know they find their way almost everywhere. They
do not worry me in the least. When I was a little girl, they used to say
that if you put a horsehair into a tub of water it would turn into a
snake in the course of a few days. That did not seem to me so very much
stranger than it was that an egg should turn into a chicken. What can I
say to that? Only that it is the Lord's doings, and marvellous in my
eyes; and if our philosophical friend should find some little live
creatures, or what seem to be live creatures, in any of his messes, I
should say as much, and no more. You do not think I would shut up my
Bible and Prayer-Book because there is one more thing I do not understand
in a world where I understand so very little of all the wonders that
surround me?

It may be very wrong to pay any attention to those speculations about the
origin of mankind which seem to conflict w