In all this the whole mass of ‘Evidence’ goes for absolutely nothing. If the Bible had never been heard of to this moment, and I picked it off a dunghill, those words and truths would just as irresistibly transfix and ‘find’ me as a two-edged sword.
But since, as Pulsford says, ‘Most people get their faith through their heart, not through their head,’—there are thousands of God’s children who, seeing and feeling the infinite beauty and pricelessness of these words and truths,—but not seeing fully their infinite omnipotence, their absolute impregnability,—fancy that to preserve from the slightest danger what is to them so infinitely precious, it is necessary to claim for the whole casket the same authority and value that the jewel claims for itself: and then, because this claim does not and cannot maintain itself, they rush to arms for it and brand as ‘rejectors of the Bible’ some who, like your child, find in its words the very deepest blessings of existence....
I don’t know enough about it to have an opinion worth anything, but as far as I can judge, it seems to me the result of open fair criticism rather establishes than disturbs the veracity of all Jewish history as given in the Bible since the time of Moses, while it does not seem to me possible satisfactorily to defend the authenticity of the account of the Creation and probably the first few centuries,—both from the certainties of Geology and probabilities of history, and also from the internal evidence.
But what is the leading point to me is the folly of trying to arrest honest investigation about anything,—and the especial mistake of fancying that any result arrived at could touch the real standing and position of the Bible. For myself, I can say in all sincerity that if not one fraction only but the whole biblical history were proved to be utterly unreliable and mistaken, it would not make the difference of a straw’s weight either to my life or my faith,—it is not as a rival of Herodotus that I have valued the Bible,—the destruction of the historical credit of the one would matter just as much to me as that of the other. We might lose some grand illustrations of God’s love and care, but the truths would remain, and the history of any century, of any land, of any man, leaves Him not ‘without a witness’....
Well, Mother, it has indeed been more than a page or two,—if it pains or wearies you do but burn it; but I am glad from the bottom of my heart to tell you honestly what and why I believe on a subject where I fear Mother is a little afraid of me;—to put at least calmly and clearly before you other thoughts and words than those you hear oftenest,—not that you may accept, but that you may consider them. For you as for me, Mother, God ‘shall lead us into all truth’.
Sunday. You asked me about Miss v. Palaus. She isn’t ill now, but I think she suffers altogether from this terrible ‘no holiday’ system. Think what it is to go on for 26 years!—with only a week’s break at a time, and that perhaps once a year.
Dear, I broke off abruptly, it occurring to me to apply the principle of how bad it was to go on without change and how one was bound to get all one could; also that it was a bright day and that I was no use where I was, so had better go to Heidelberg....
The sermon was about sorrow and bereavement, commonplace enough and disagreeable sometimes, but chiming in in bits with some thoughts of mine. For one thing he said it was a duty to rouse oneself after a time and go back to one’s daily work. Now, Mother, you know better than anyone how I have strained every sinew to take up my tool again and work on, from the very first months even. But there is a certain state of things which I can’t honestly conceal from myself which makes the struggle in some ways a very terrible one.
I am sure ‘what is is best’, and I don’t say one word in the form even of sorrow, only of perplexity. But, Mother, I haven’t the least the mind I had,—I have waited and waited to see if they would not waken but now for nearly 18 months my mental powers seem struck with stupor. It’s no use urging them,—they don’t answer the call. The love and power of mental work seem to have faded away. I just jog on from day to day with sense enough for daily life perhaps,—but I don’t seem to get any nearer any return of intellects. I won’t say it would have been better—because if it would, it would have been so—but I don’t doubt if I had had a crushing physical illness last Xmas, the agony would have exhausted itself and I probably risen from a brain fever as strong as ever,—but no physical relief coming in this form, the whole weight seems to have fallen on my brain and paralyzed it. My whole mind sometimes seems a blank,—the children ask me simple questions and I know nothing. Sometimes it’s hard work to crush back the tears when it is so.
You know those terrible (they did frighten me horribly) kinds of delusions that showed me a white dog or a wheelbarrow just when I was going to pull up when driving you.