Then, Too,
The Impious Paraphrase Of The Athanasian Creed, With Its
Terrible Climax, From The Converting Jesuit:
'Or vous voyez
bien .
. . Qu'un homme qui ne croit pas cette histoire doit
etre brule dans ce monde ci, et dans l'autre.' To which
'L'Empereur' replies: 'Ca c'est clair comme le jour.'
Could an ignorant youth, fevered with curiosity and the first
goadings of the questioning spirit, resist such logic, such
scorn, such scathing wit, as he met with here?
Then followed Rousseau; 'Emile' became my favourite.
Froude's 'Nemesis of Faith' I read, and many other books of a
like tendency. Passive obedience, blind submission to
authority, was never one of my virtues, and once my faith was
shattered, I knew not where to stop - what to doubt, what to
believe. If the injunction to 'prove all things' was
anything more than an empty apophthegm, inquiry, in St.
Paul's eyes at any rate, could not be sacrilege.
It was not happiness I sought, - not peace of mind at least;
for assuredly my thirst for knowledge, for truth, brought me
anything but peace. I never was more restless, or, at times,
more unhappy. Shallow, indeed, must be the soul that can
lightly sever itself from beliefs which lie at the roots of
our moral, intellectual, and emotional being, sanctified too
by associations of our earliest love and reverence. I used
to wander about the fields, and sit for hours in sequestered
spots, longing for some friend, some confidant to take
counsel with.
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