If he destroyed her faith, what had he to give her to fill its place? There was nothing in a string of negations to satisfy the hunger of a human soul. Granted that her faith was folly, that her religion was pure superstition, there was no denying that it was a very beautiful superstition, that it invested life with a grandeur that nothing else could give to it.
And, after all, was he so sure that he had found the ultimate truth? He had inscribed on his little banner Ne plus ultra, but had he any right to dogmatise more than others? There might be a farther "beyond" which faith could pierce. There might be truth which flesh and sense could never apprehend. There might be spirit as well as matter.
"I should like you to read me more from the same book," he said, at length.
"Oh! I will do that with pleasure," she said, eagerly. "I knew you would like my dear old Quaker poet."
"He has the gift of expression," he answered, cautiously.
Then she began to read "The Eternal Goodness," slowly and reverently.
He closed his eyes again, and listened with wrapt attention. The beautiful faith of the poet seemed to strike a new chord in his being. Moreover, the religion in which he had been reared, and from which he had broken away, seemed a nobler and a Diviner thing than it had ever appeared to him before. Stripped of its human glosses and paraphrases, released from the rusty fetters of dogma, stated in simple language, it awoke a dormant emotion in his nature that had never been touched until now.
"Would you mind leaving the book with me when you go?" he questioned, when she had finished.
"Of course I will leave it," she answered.
"I am afraid I shall not see so much when I read it for myself," he went on. "There is so much in the right emphasis being given."