"But, Claude—"
"Now, that will do, May!" he said impatiently. "We don't think alike about these subjects, simply because I know a great deal more about them than I did before I went away, or than you do now; so let the matter drop."
I was very unhappy after this conversation with Claude. He gave me no opportunity of renewing it; but though he had not explained to me any of his doubts, he had left an uneasy, troubled feeling on my mind, a feeling which I could not shake off.
When I went upstairs to bed that night, I sat down to think over what Claude had said. What if, after all, I was resting upon a delusion, building my happiness upon an unreality? What if, after all, my faith was in vain, my hope unfounded?
Horrible doubts, such as I had never known before, came crowding into my mind. "Are these things so?" was the oft-repeated question of my heart. It was a sad awakening from the trust and implicit confidence of childhood; an awakening which, perhaps, comes to every thoughtful mind, when its faith is brought into contact, for the first time, with the intellect of this world; an awakening which leads us either into the terrible region of doubt and uncertainty, or into faith, far firmer than ever before, because based, not on mere childish impressions, but on the words and the being of the eternal God.
In this state of perplexity I went to my bedroom window and looked out. It was a bright, starlight night, so I put out my candle, and sat by the window, gazing into the sky at the countless multitude of stars.
Who had made all these mighty worlds? Who was keeping them all in their places, and making them fulfil the object for which they were created?
I knew who it was; my faith in the existence of an Almighty God remained unshaken. I could never look around me on God's universe and doubt that God was.
And then, as I looked at the stars, other thoughts came—thoughts of the majesty and wisdom and power of the God who had made all these; thoughts, too, of the smallness and insignificance of our own little world—in comparison with the rest of God's great universe a mere speck in space.
And I—what was I?