Beulah - Page 308/348

"Once I had some principles, some truths clearly defined; but now I

know nothing distinctly, believe nothing. The more I read and study

the more obscure seem the questions I am toiling to answer. Is this

increasing intricacy the reward of an earnestly inquiring mind? Is

this to be the end of all my glorious aspirations? Have I come to

this? 'Thus far, and no farther.' I have stumbled on these

boundaries many times, and now must I rest here? Oh, is this my

recompense? Can this be all? All!" Smothered sobs convulsed her

frame.

She had long before rejected a "revealed code" as unnecessary; the

next step was to decipher nature's symbols, and thus grasp God's

hidden laws; but here the old trouble arose. How far was

"individualism" allowable and safe? To reconcile the theories of

rationalism, she felt, was indeed a herculean task, and she groped

on into deeper night. Now and then her horizon was bestarred, and,

in her delight, she shouted, "Eureka!" But when the telescope of her

infallible reason was brought to bear upon the coldly glittering

points, they flickered and went out. More than once a flaming comet,

of German manufacture, trailed in glory athwart her dazzled vision;

but close observation resolved the gilded nebula, and the nucleus

mocked her. Doubt engendered doubt; the death of one difficulty was

the instant birth of another. Wave after wave of skepticism surged

over her soul, until the image of a great personal God was swept

from its altar. But atheism never yet usurped the sovereignty of the

human mind; in all ages, moldering vestiges of protean deism

confront the giant specter, and every nation under heaven has reared

its fane to the "unknown God." Beulah had striven to enthrone in her

desecrated soul the huge, dim, shapeless phantom of pantheism, and

had turned eagerly to the system of Spinoza. The heroic grandeur of

the man's life and character had strangely fascinated her; but now,

that idol of a "substance, whose two infinite attributes were

extension and thought," mocked her; and she hurled it from its

pedestal, and looked back wistfully to the pure faith of her

childhood. A Godless world; a Godless woman. She took up the lamp

and retired to her own room. On all sides books greeted her; here

was the varied lore of dead centuries; here she had held communion

with the great souls entombed in these dusty pages. Here, wrestling

alone with those grim puzzles, she had read out the vexed and vexing

questions, in this debating club of the moldering dead, and

endeavored to make them solve them. These well-worn volumes, with

close "marginalias," echoed her inquiries, but answered them not to

her satisfaction. Was her life to be thus passed in feverish toil

and ended as by a leap out into a black, shoreless abyss? Like a

spent child she threw her arms on the mantelpiece and wept

uncontrollably, murmuring: "Oh, better die now than live as I have lived, in perpetual

stragglings! What is life worth without peace of mind, without hope;

and what hope have I? Diamonded webs of sophistry can no longer

entangle; like Noah's dove, my soul has fluttered among them,

striving in vain for a sure hold to perch upon; but, unlike it, I

have no ark to flee to. Weary and almost hopeless, I would fain

believe that this world is indeed as a deluge, and in it there is no

ark of refuge but the Bible. It is true, I did not see this souls'

ark constructed; I know nothing of the machinery employed; and no

more than Noah's dove can I explore and fully understand its secret

chambers; yet, all untutored, the exhausted bird sought safety in

the incomprehensible, and was saved. As to the mysteries of

revelation and inspiration, why, I meet mysteries, turn which way I

will. Man, earth, time, eternity, God, are all inscrutable mysteries

My own soul is a mystery unto itself, and so long as I am impotent

to fathom its depths, how shall I hope to unfold the secrets of the

universe?"