Beulah - Page 238/348

"It is small comfort to anticipate a time of blessedness for future

generations. What benefit is steam or telegraph to the moldering

mummies of the catacombs? I want to know what good the millennium

will do you and me when our dust is mingled with mother earth, in

some silent necropolis?"

"Oh, Beulah, what ails you to-day? You look so gloomy and wretched.

It seems to me you have changed sadly of late. I knew that a life of

labor such as you voluntarily assumed would chasten your spirit, but

I did not expect this utter revolution of your natura so soon. Oh,

have done with skepticism!"

"Faith in creeds is not to be put on and laid aside at will, like a

garment. Granted that these same doctrines of Zoroaster are faint

adumbrations of the Hebrew creed, the Gordian knot is by no means

loosed. That prologue in 'Faust' horrified you yesterday; yet, upon

my word, I don't see why; for very evidently it is taken from Job,

and Faust is but an ideal Job, tempted in more subtle manner than by

the loss of flocks, houses, and children. You believe that Satan was

allowed to do his utmost to ruin Job, and Mephistopheles certainly

set out on the same fiendish mission. Mephistopheles is not the

defiant demon of Milton, but a powerful prince in the service of

God. You need not shudder; I am giving no partial account; I merely

repeat the opinion of many on this subject. It is all the same to

me. Evil exists: that is the grim fact. As to its origin--I would

about as soon set off to search for the city Asgard."

"Still, I would not give my faith for all your learning and

philosophy. See what it has brought you to," answered Clara

sorrowfully.

"Your faith! what does it teach you of this evil principle?"

retorted Beulah impatiently.

"At least more than all speculation has taught you. You admit that

of its origin you know nothing; the Bible tells me that time was

when earth was sinless, and man holy, and that death and sin entered

the world by man's transgression--"

"Which I don't believe," interrupted Beulah.

"So you might sit there and stop your ears and close your eyes and

assert that this was a sunny, serene day. Your reception or

rejection of the Biblical record by no means affects its

authenticity. My faith teaches that the evil you so bitterly

deprecate is not eternal; shall finally be crushed, and the harmony

you crave pervade all realms. Why an All-wise and All-powerful God

suffers evil to exist is not for his finite creatures to determine.

It is one of many mysteries which it is as utterly useless to bother

over as to weave ropes of sand."