and illusion!

My intelligence said, "Resign yourself to what is, after all, the truth:
console yourself with the world and material achievements." The
heart said, "Resignation is impossible, for there is no consolation to
the heart without God." I listened to my heart rather than my
intelligence, and for two terrible years I fought for faith. I was
always reserved, and never admitted anyone into the deep things of
my life--but when I was twenty my father perceived that I was going
through some inward crisis. He knew the books that I read, and
probably guessed what had happened to me. At any rate he called
me into his room one day and asked me, out of love and obedience
to himself, to give up reading all science. This was an overwhelming
blow to me: yet I loved him dearly, and had never disobeyed him in
my life. Again I let my heart speak; and I sacrificed my mind and
my books.

I threw myself now more than ever into social amusements, and in
my solitary hours sought consolation in my "dream-life." I was
afraid to turn to the love of Nature--to my beautiful pastime,--for the
pain in it was unbearable.

Towards the end of two years my struggles for faith commenced to
find a reward. Little by little a faint hope crept into my mind--fragile,
often imperceptible. A questioning remark made by my younger
brother helped me: "If human life is entirely material and a
part of Nature only, then what becomes of human thoughts and
aspirations?" Science had proved to me that nothing is lost--but has
a destiny--in that it evolves into another form or condition of activity.
Evolution! with its many seeming contradictions to Religion--might
it not be merely a strong light, too strong as yet for my weak mind,
blinding me into temporary darkness? What raised Man above the
beasts but his thoughts and aspirations; and if even a grain of dust
were imperishable, were these thoughts and aspirations of Man
alone to end in nothing--to be lost! It was but a reasonable inference
to say No. These invisible thoughts and aspirations have also a
future--a destiny in a, to us, still invisible world--in the Life of the
Spirit. To this my mind was able to agree. It was a step. In the realm
of Ideal Thought I might find again my Faith. I had indeed been
foolish to suppose that a system which provided for the continuation
of a grain of sand should overlook the Spirit of Man. This was
presupposing the existence of a spirit in Man; but who could be
foun