---- continued to write me, striving to guide me along the path
which had led his own soul to contentment, but I can only find room
here for two brief extracts, which will show how to himself he solved
the problem. He thought me mistaken in my view

"Of the nature of the _sin_ and _error_ which is supposed to grieve
God. I take it that sin is an absolutely necessary factor in the
production of the perfect man. It was foreseen and allowed as means to
an end--as, in fact, an education. The view of all the sin and misery
in the world cannot grieve God any more than it can grieve you to see
Digby fail in his first attempt to build a card-castle or a
rabbit-hutch. All is part of the training. God looks at the ideal man
to which all tends.... "No, Mrs. Besant; I never feel at all inclined
to give up the search, or to suppose that the other side may be right.
I claim no merit for it, but I have an invincible faith in the
morality of God and the moral order of the world. I have no more doubt
about the falsehood of the popular theology than I have about the
unreality of six robbers who attacked me three nights ago in a horrid
dream. I exult and rejoice in the grandeur and freedom of the little
bit of truth it has been given me to see. I am told that 'Present-day
Papers,' by Bishop Ewing (edited), are a wonderful help, many of them,
to puzzled people; I mean to get them. But I am sure you will find
that the truth will (even so little as we may be able to find out)
grow on you, make you free, light your path, and dispel, at no distant
time, your _painful_ difficulties and doubts. I should say on no
account give up your reading. I think with you that you could not do
without it. It will be a wonderful source of help and peace to you.
For there are struggles far more fearful than those of intellectual
doubt. I am keenly alive to the gathered-up sadness of which your last
two pages are an expression. I was sorrier than I can say to read
them. They reminded me of a long and very dark time in my own life,
when I thought the light never would come. Thank God it came, or I
think I could not have held out much longer. But you have evidently
strength to bear it now. The more dangerous time, I should fancy, has
passed. You will have to mind that the fermentation leaves clear
spiritual wine, and not (as too often) vinegar. I wish I could write
something more helpful to you in this great matter. But as I sit in
front of my large bay window an