“What makes the heart beat?” said she to her father.
“It is the principle of life,” said he.
“And what is this principle of life?” said the child.
“I cannot explain it to you,” said the philosopher; “we do not comprehend it; we only know that there is such a thing, and that by its impulse the heart beats and the blood circulates.”
“Put your hand on my breast,” said the child. The father did as requested.
“Does not my heart beat, father?”
“Yes,” was the reply.
“And yet you cannot comprehend how this is. You said we must believe nothing which we cannot explain. Yet I know that my heart beats, though you cannot tell me how, or why. Dear father, may I not believe in a God, though I cannot comprehend his nature or existence; and may I not believe in the Bible, and its wonderful doctrines, even though they may be beyond my feeble reason?”
The philosopher stood rebuked, but again he turned the conversation.
The fever which had attacked the little girl proceeded in its rapid course, and in a few days she drew near her end. As her spirit was about to depart, she called, in a faint whisper, for her father. He placed his ear near to her lips, and caught her last words; “Father, may I not believe that Christ died for sinners? may I not believe, though I cannot fully comprehend, the doctrine of the atonement?”