“‘Just as the sensualist can never understand the spiritually-minded man and his infinitely higher capacity for joy, so the man of mere common sense can never understand the man of philosophic insight, the man of more than common sense, until he has been mentally born again, and has transcended the materialistic phase of thought in which we all begin to do our thinking, and which most of us never pass beyond. As said the man whose dust lies at our feet, “Every man’s words, who speaks from that life, must sound vain to those who do not dwell in the same thought on their own part.”’
“‘But is it necessary to go through this tragic experience of which you have spoken in order to reach right results?’ I asked.
“‘Whether it be tragic or not depends upon the temperament and traditions of the individual,’ he answered.
“‘To me, brought up to know all that was possible of the loveliness of Christian character, and taught to attribute it to a theology that was more or less false, a change of belief was naturally almost as much to be dreaded as a deterioration in moral character. From the cradle I was destined for the missionary work; so you see that I had always the fear of frustrating my parents’ most cherished hopes if I should deviate from their standard of doctrine. In later years I gladly acquiesced in their desire to see me in the ministry; it seemed to me, it still seems to me, the most enviable life in the world.’
“I listened eagerly,” said Mildred, “as Mr. Everett said this. I, too, had often thought of the missionary work, but I could not leave mother then.
“‘Well, Miss Brewster,’ Mr. Everett continued; ‘I was blessed or afflicted, whichever you may please to call it, with a conscience which would not let me rest content with tacit consent to what I came to see was hardly more than a half truth, and my inward life since my senior year at Yale three years ago has been, until recently, one of bitter conflict. Night after night, after leaving the lecture-room at the seminary, have I walked my floor until morning, too wretched to pray, my brain half crazed with the ceaseless turmoil of my thoughts. “I have no message to give to others,” I said, “for I am sure of nothing; no one is sure of anything.” Like the sad Hindu king, I asked myself,
“How knowest thou aught of God,
Of his favor or his wrath?
Can the little fish tell what the eagle thinks,
Or map out the eagle’s path?