as set forth in the Bible, were true, it would
be a scheme in many things worthy of a divine benevolence: such as that
in which you believe. But can I imagine Infinity setting itself to work
out such trivialities? What is even a world? A mere grain of dust in
endless space! It cannot be. A God who could take interest in man, in
such an atom as I, would be no God at all. What avails me to have risen
unto more knowledge, more clearness in the sense of the divine, if it is
to plunge me into such an abyss as this? Would I had never been awakened
from my sleep--the dull stupor of materialism into which I was fast
sinking. Then I might, in the end, have conquered even the last fear,
that of 'something after death,' and have perished like a soulless clod,
satisfied that there was no hereafter. Now, if there should be? I whirl
and whirl; I can find no rest. I would I knew for certain that I was
mad. But it is not so."

"You answer, my kind friend, like a woman--like the sort of woman I
believed in in my boyhood--when I longed for a sister, such a sister as
you. It is very strange, even to myself, that I should write to any
one as freely as I do to you. I know that I could never speak thus.
Therefore, when I return home, you must not marvel to find me just the
same reserved being as ever--less to you, perhaps, than to most people,
but still reserved. Yet, never believe but that I thank you for all your
goodness most deeply."

"You say that, like most women, you have little power of keen
philosophical argument. Perhaps not; but there is in you a spiritual
sense that may even transcend knowledge. I once heard--was it not you
who said so?--that the poet who 'reads God's secrets in the stars' soars
nearer Him than the astronomer who calculates by figures and by line.
As, even in the material universe, there are planets and systems which
mock all human ken; so in the immaterial world there must be a boundary
where all human reasoning fails, and we can trust to nothing but that
inward inexplicable sense which we call faith. This seems to me
the great argument which inclines us to receive that supernatural
manifestation of the all-pervading Spirit which is termed 'revelation.'
And there we go back again to the relation between the finite--humanity,
and the infinite--Deity.'"

"One of my speculations you answer by an allegory--Does not the sun make
instinct with life not only man, but the meanest insect, the lowest form
of vegetable