“And what about the unevangelical Protestants and the poor Catholics? and who decides what are the vital points? and why cannot you and the Baptists commune together, then?” The eager questions were poured forth, overwhelming the listener.
Mr. Gray shook his head sadly. “I do not think you are in a fit state to speak of such matters, Rose,” he said. “The Lord Jesus Christ died for you. Pray to him that he will himself teach you.”
Rose stood up. “Good-by, Mr. Gray,” she said gently. “I am afraid I have troubled you. Perhaps you will say a prayer for me sometimes.”
“I will indeed, my child,” he answered her, with a very troubled look upon his face; “but you must pray too.”
“Pray?” she repeated to herself mechanically as she went out of the room. “I wonder how they do it, and what they mean by it, and what good it ever does? Pray? Oh! if I only could.”
After this Rose was never seen inside the old meeting-house again. Everybody learned that she was in some religious difficulty; most persons never mentioned the subject to her; some told her not to worry, but to trust; others that it made no manner of difference what
she believed, so long as she was sincere. To the one she answered that the only belief she was sincere in was that she did not know what to believe; to the other she made no reply. But to John once she answered wearily: “If you sat here studying, and I told you the house was on fire, and you could smell it burning, would you keep still at your books, and trust and not worry, because other people said it was not your house?”
On one occasion she took up a Protestant Episcopal Book of Common Prayer which she found in her father’s library, and, turning its pages, came to the Apostles’ Creed. It comforted her to read it; she thought it must be a blessed thing to be brought up always with that impressed upon one, and never to know anything else. She had some Protestant Episcopal friends; they seemed very content. But, still idly turning the leaves, she came to the Thirty-Nine Articles, and her eye lighted on the words, “As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred; so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith.” So then even they could not be sure and settled in their belief, she said to herself; for if Rome and Jerusalem and Antioch had erred, why not the Protestant Episcopal Church of America? It was the closing drop of bitterness. John found her that noon in as terrible a state as on the day of Ellen Lawton’s death.
“Rose,” he said gravely, “for some time, as you know, I have doubted the existence of a God; but I will tell you now that my doubts on that point are settled. Wherever and whatever he may be, there surely is one; for I am convinced
that no one could suffer as you do without some reality to cause it.”