It was without balm for wounded pride, or stay for weak despondency, or
consolation for bereavement; its steep and rugged thoroughfares led to
no promised land of beatitude, and there were no soft resting-places
by the way.
Its only weapon was steadfastness; its only shield, endurance; its
earthly hope, the common weal; its earthly prize, the opening of all
roads to knowledge, and the release from a craven inheritance of fear;
its final guerdon--sleep? Who knows?
Sleep was not bad.
So that simple, sincere, humble, devout, earnest, fervent, passionate,
and over-conscientious young unbelievers like myself had to be very
strong and brave and self-reliant (which I was not), and very much in
love with what they conceived to be the naked Truth (a figure of
doubtful personal attractions at first sight), to tread the ways of life
with that unvarying cheerfulness, confidence, and serenity which the
believer claims as his own special and particular appanage.
So much for my profession of unfaith, shared (had I but known it) by
many much older and wiser and better educated than I, and only reached
by them after great sacrifice of long-cherished illusions, and terrible
pangs of soul-questioning--a struggle and a wrench that I was spared
through my kind parents' thoughtfulness when I was a little boy.
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