"No, never. I want to die before such a doubt occurs to me. Oh, what
would my life be without that plan? What would a fallen, sin-cursed
world be without a Jesus?"
"But why curse a race in order to necessitate a Saviour?"
Clara looked in astonishment at the pale, fixed features before her.
A frightened expression came over her own countenance, a look of
shuddering horror; and, putting up her wasted hands, as if to ward
off some grim phantom, she cried: "Oh, Beulah! what is this? You are not an infidel?"
Her companion was silent a moment; then said emphatically: "Dr. Hartwell does not believe the religion you hold so dear."
Clara covered her face with her hands, and answered brokenly: "Beulah, I have envied you, because I fancied that your superior
intellect won you the love which I was weak enough to expect and
need. But if it has brought you both to doubt the Bible, I thank God
that the fatal gift was withheld from me. Have your books and
studies brought you to this? Beulah! Beulah! throw them into the
fire, and come back to trust in Christ."
She held out her hands imploringly; but, with a singularly cold
smile, her friend replied: "You must go to sleep. Your fever is rising. Don't talk any more to-
night; I will not hear you."
An hour after Clara slept soundly, and Beulah sat in her own room
bending over a book. Midnight study had long since become an
habitual thing; nay, two and three o'clock frequently found her
beside the waning lamp. Was it any marvel that, as Dr. Hartwell
expressed it, she "looked wretched." From her earliest childhood she
had been possessed by an active spirit of inquiry which constantly
impelled her to investigate, and as far as possible to explain, the
mysteries which surrounded, her on every side. With her growth grew
this haunting spirit, which asked continually: "What am I? Whence
did I come? And whither am I bound? What is life? What is death? Am
I my own mistress, or am I but a tool in the hands of my Maker? What
constitutes the difference between my mind and my body? Is there any
difference? If spirit must needs have body to incase it, and body
must have a spirit to animate it, may they not be identical? With
these primeval foundation questions began her speculative career. In
the solitude of her own soul she struggled bravely and earnestly to
answer those "dread questions, which, like swords of flaming fire,
tokens of imprisonment, encompass man on earth." Of course mystery
triumphed. Panting for the truth, she pored over her Bible,
supposing that here, at least, all clouds would melt away; but here,
too, some inexplicable passages confronted her. Physically, morally,
and mentally she found the world warring. To reconcile these
antagonisms with the conditions and requirements of Holy Writ, she
now most faithfully set to work. Ah, proudly aspiring soul! How many
earnest thinkers had essayed the same mighty task, and died under
the intolerable burden? Unluckily for her, there was no one to
direct or assist her. She scrupulously endeavored to conceal her
doubts and questions from her guardian. Poor child? she fancied she
concealed them so effectually from his knowledge; while he silently
noted the march of skepticism in her nature. There were dim,
puzzling passages of Scripture which she studied on her knees; now
trying to comprehend them, and now beseeching the Source of all
knowledge to enlighten her. But, as has happened to numberless
others, there was seemingly no assistance given. The clouds grew
denser and darker, and, like the "cry of strong swimmers in their
agony," her prayers had gone up to the Throne of Grace. Sometimes
she was tempted to go to the minister of the church where she sat
Sunday after Sunday, and beg him to explain the mysteries to her.
But the pompous austerity of his manners repelled her whenever she
thought of broaching the subject, and gradually she saw that she
must work out her own problems. Thus, from week to week and month to
month, she toiled on, with a slowly dying faith, constantly
clambering over obstacles which seemed to stand between her trust
and revelation. It was no longer study for the sake of erudition;
these riddles involved all that she prized in Time and Eternity, and
she grasped books of every description with the eagerness of a
famishing nature. What dire chance threw into her hands such works
as Emerson's, Carlyle's, and Goethe's? Like the waves of the clear,
sunny sea, they only increased her thirst to madness. Her burning
lips were ever at these fountains; and, in her reckless eagerness,
she plunged into the gulf of German speculation. Here she believed
that she had indeed found the "true processes," and, with renewed
zest, continued the work of questioning. At this stage of the
conflict the pestilential scourge was laid upon the city, and she
paused from her metaphysical toil to close glazed eyes and shroud
soulless clay. In the awful hush of those hours of watching she
looked calmly for some solution, and longed for the unquestioning
faith of early years. But these influences passed without aiding her
in the least, and, with rekindled ardor, she went back to her false
prophets. In addition, ethnology beckoned her on to conclusions
apparently antagonistic to the revealed system, and the stony face
of geology seemed radiant with characters of light, which she might
decipher and find some security in. From Dr. Asbury's extensive
collection she snatched treatise after treatise. The sages of
geology talked of the pre-Adamic eras, and of man's ending the
slowly forged chain, of which the radiata form the lowest link; and
then she was told that in those pre-Adamic ages paleontologists find
no trace whatever of that golden time when the vast animal creation
lived in harmony and bloodshed was unknown; ergo, man's fall in Eden
had no agency in bringing death into the world; ergo, that chapter
in Genesis need puzzle her no more.