re
need of them, my faith in them suddenly becomes so vast and
heart-stirring that I think I must help most by talking naturally, and
letting the faith find its own way from soul to soul. Indeed I could not
find words for it if I tried. And yet I am compelled, as a messenger of
the glad tidings of God, to solemnly assure you that all is well. We have
no key to the 'Mystery of Pain', excepting the Cross of Christ. But there
is another and a deeper solution in the hands of our Father. And it will
be ours when we can understand it. There is--in the place to which we
travel--some blessed explanation of your baby's pain and your grief,
which will fill with light the darkest heart. Now you must believe
without having seen; that is true faith. You must

'Reach a hand through time to catch
The far-oft interest of tears'.

That you may have strength so to do is part of your share in the prayers
of yours very faithfully, W. D----."

During the summer months I saw much of this clergyman, Mr. D---- and his
wife. We grew into closer intimacy in consequence of the dangerous
illness of their only child, a beautiful boy a few months old. I had
gained quite a name in Cheltenham as a nurse--my praises having been sung
by the doctor--and Mrs. D---- felt she could trust me even with her
darling boy while she snatched a night's sorely needed rest. My
questionings were not shirked by Mr. D----, nor discouraged; he was
neither horrified nor sanctimoniously rebuking, but met them all with a
wide comprehension inexpressibly soothing to one writhing in the first
agony of real doubt. The thought of hell was torturing me; somehow out of
the baby's pain through those seemingly endless hours had grown a dim
realisation of what hell might be, full of the sufferings of the beloved,
and my whole brain and heart revolted from the unutterable cruelty of a
creating and destroying God. Mr. D---- lent me Maurice and Robertson, and
strove to lead me into their wider hope for man, their more trustful
faith in God.

Everyone who has doubted after believing knows how, after the first
admitted and recognised doubt, others rush in like a flood, and how
doctrine after doctrine starts up in new and lurid light, looking so
different in aspect from the fair faint outlines in which it had shone
forth in the soft mists of faith. The presence of evil and pain in the
world made by a "good God", and the pain falling on the innocent, as on
my seven months' old bab