easily to throw light on what to many has been, and is still,
impenetrable darkness. I have been a preacher for some years, and I
thought the Testament was old and familiar to me; but you have made it
a new and marvellous book full of most precious meanings, and I hope I
may be able to impart to those whom it is my duty to instruct,
something of the great consolation and hope your writing has filled me
with.

"Believe me,

"Gratefully yours,

"T.M."

LETTER X.

"MADAM,

"Will you tell me what ground you have for the foundation of the
religious theory contained in your book, 'A Romance of Two Worlds'? Is
it a part of your own belief? I am MOST anxious to know this, and I am
sure you will be kind enough to answer me. Till I read your book I
thought myself an Agnostic, but now I am not quite sure of this. I do
not believe in the Deity as depicted by the Churches. I CANNOT. Over
and over again I have asked myself--If there is a God, why should He be
angry? It would surely be easy for Him to destroy this world entirely
as one would blow away an offending speck of dust, and it would be much
better and BRAVER for Him to do this than to torture His creation. For
I call life a torture and certainly a useless and cruel torture if it
is to end in annihilation. I know I seem to be blasphemous in these
remarks, yet if you only knew what I suffer sometimes! I desire, I LONG
to believe. YOU seem so certain of your Creed--a Creed so noble,
reasonable and humane--the God you depict so worthy of the adoration of
a Universe. I BEG of you to tell me--DO you feel sure of this
beneficent all-pervading Love concerning which you write so eloquently?
I do not wish to seem an intruder on your most secret thought. I want
to believe that YOU believe--and if I felt this, the tenor of my whole
life might change. Help me if you can--I stand in real need of help.
You may judge I am very deeply in earnest, or I should not have written
to you.

"Yours faithfully,

"A. W. L."

* * * * *

Of such letters as these I have received enough to make a volume of
themselves; but I think the ten I have selected are sufficient to show
how ardent and inextinguishable is the desire or STRAINING UPWARD, like
a flower to the light, of the human Soul for those divine things which
nourish it. Scarcely a day passes without my receiving more of these
earnest and often pathetic appeals for a little help, a little comfort,
a lit