“I fear I startled you, madam; but I was not at first aware who was talking to my little girl. Afterwards, the few words of yours which I overheard induced me to pause.”
“What words?”
“About sleep, and dreams, and immortality. Your way of putting the case was graceful—poetical Whether a child would apprehend it or not, is another question.”
Olive was surprised at the half-sarcastic, half-earnest way in which he said this. She longed to ask what motive he could have had in bringing the child up in such total ignorance of the first principles of Christianity. The stranger seemed to divine her question, and answer it.
“No doubt you think it strange that my little daughter is so ill-informed in some theological points, and still more that I should have stopped you when you were kind enough to instruct her thereon. But, being a father—to say nothing of a clergyman”—(Olive looked at him in some surprise, and found that her interlocutor bore, in dress at least, a clerical appearance)—“I choose to judge for myself in some things; and I deem it very inexpedient that the feeble mind of a child should be led to dwell on subjects which are beyond the grasp of the profoundest philosopher.”
“But not beyond the reverent faith of a Christian,” Olive ventured to say.
He looked at her with his piercing eyes, and said eagerly, “You think so, you feel so?” then recovering his old manner, “Certainly—of course—that is the great beauty of a woman's religion. She pauses not to reason,—she is always ready to believe; therefore you women are a great deal happier than the philosophers.”
It was doubtful, from his tone, whether he meant this in compliment or in sarcasm. But Olive replied as her own true and pious spirit prompted.
“It seems to me that while the intellect comprehends, the heart, or rather the soul, is the only fountain of belief. Without that, could a man dive into the infinite until he became as an angel in power and wisdom—could he 'by searching find out God '—still he could not believe.”
“Do you believe in God?”