The cherub's face smiles at me and looks at me under its eyelids, and open mouth says banteringly, "Try it; the water is not dangerous." I touch the holy water with two fingers,—a ripple passes over the surface, as though it were the pool of Bethesda, and then 1 make a motion with my finger from my forehead to my heart and across from left to right, as I have seen my daughter do. But in the next moment I am outside the Church, for the cherub laughed, and I—I will not say I was ashamed, but I had rather no one had seen it.
Outside, on the church door, there is a notice about something, which informs me that it is Advent. In front of the church an old woman sits in the terrible cold and sleeps. I lay gently a silver coin in her lap without her noticing it, and although I would have gladly seen her awaking, I go my way. What a noble and real joy to be able to act as the agent of Providence in hearing a request and to give for once, after having so long received.
Now I read the Imitation and Chateaubriand's La Genie du Christianisme. I have taken the sign of the cross and carry a medal which I have received at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Montmartre. But the cross is for me the symbol of sufferings patiently borne, and not the token that Christ has suffered in my stead, for I must do that for myself. I have, in fact, framed a theory, as follows: When we unbelievers did not want to hear any more about Christ, He left us to ourselves, His vicarious satisfaction for sin ceased, and we must drag ourselves along with our own misery and consciousness of guilt. Swedenborg says expressly that Christ's suffering on the cross was not His work of atonement, but a test which God laid upon Himself rather of shame than of suffering.
At the same time as the Imitatio Christi, I get Swedenborg's Vera Religio Christiana in two thick volumes. With an attractive power that defies all resistance he drags me into his gigantic mill and begins to grind me. At first I lay the book aside and say, "This is not for me." But I take it up again, for there is so much in it that chimes in with my observations and experiences, and so much worldly wisdom that interests me. Again I cast it aside, but have no peace till I take it up again; and the terrible thing about the matter is that when I read, I have the distinct impression "This is the truth, but I cannot reach it." Never! for I will not Then I begin to revolt, and say to myself, "He has deceived himself, and this is the spirit of falsehood." But then comes the fear that I have made a mistake.
What is it after all in the book, which is to be a word of life to me? I find the whole arrangement of grace and eternal hell; childish recollections of the hell of childhood with its everlasting miseries. But now I have got my head in the noose, and am held fast. The whole day and half the night my thoughts revolve round this one theme,—I am damned, for I cannot speak the word "Jesus" without adding "Christ," and according to Swedenborg, this is the shibboleth of evil spirits.
Now a whole abyss opens within me, and the gentle Christ of the Imitation has become the Tormentor. I am keenly conscious that if this process continues I shall become a "Reader," but that I will not.
Three days have passed since I have put Swedenborg away again, but one evening, as I am studying the physiology of plants, I remember to have seen something especially interesting regarding the position of plants in the Vera Religio Christiana. Cautiously I begin to look for the well-known passage, but cannot find it; on the other hand, I find everything else, "the call, the enlightenment, sanctification, conversion," and, as I turn the page and try to hurry on, my eye is arrested by the most terrible passages which stab and burn. I hunt through both volumes twice, but what I seek has disappeared. It is an enchanted book, and I should like to burn it, but dare not, for night is approaching and two o'clock will come.
I feel myself becoming a hypocrite, and I have resolved to-morrow, if I can only sleep this night in peace, to commence a battle against this soul-destroyer.
I will survey his weaknesses with a microscope. I will pluck his stings out of my heart, even though it should be torn in the process, and I will forget that be has saved me from one madhouse in order to conduct me into another.