Only a Girl: or, A Physician for the Soul.

by Wilhelmine von Hillern

"If this is all that you have to say, I can only reply that you talk like a theologian, not like a physiologist," said Ernestine, vainly endeavouring to conceal her horror. "It is possible that there is some foundation for your other accusations of Doctor Gleissert,--I will not decide upon them at present,--but for this last there is none, or, at least, none in the degree that you mean. Yes, he did take from me my faith, but in its place he gave me that philosophy which is the resting-place of all thought, and wherein alone the doubting spirit can find peace."

"Oh, what a miserable mistake!" cried Johannes. "Do you suppose that anything can take the place of faith in the world? Can a soul as lofty as your own be content with the mere knowledge of the laws that rule the universe, without raising reverential eyes to the Power whom those laws represent? Forgive me if I talk like a theologian. Let me be clear with you upon this point too, before we part. I would at least restore to you one possession of which your uncle has robbed you, and that belongs to women in an eminent degree, far more than to men,--the power of seeing heaven open when the earth does not suffice us!"

Ernestine gazed at him in utter amazement: "Do you speak thus, you, a man of exact science,--a science that teaches how everything in existence is developed from itself! What is left for us to reverence in the God whom you would seem to declare, after we have learned that nature of itself alone creates and achieves everything?"

Johannes shook his head. "Oh, Ernestine, can we believe in Him only by believing that his Spirit hovered over the face of the waters and created the heavens and the earth in six days? I think we have learned to separate this gross material representation from the actual being of God! Thus only can faith and knowledge join hands, and I am one of those in whose minds they have thus formed an alliance, although perhaps not without a struggle. I can give my belief no concrete shape, I have not the simplicity that is satisfied with a Deity compounded of human attributes and powers, but the fervent aspiration that looks up and holds fast to my formless God,--this aspiration is my rock of safety."

"That is only a subjective emotion. What does it prove?"

"Nothing!" said Johannes. "For the existence of a God can be as little proved as disproved. I might say He is to the world what the soul is to the body, and we cannot give form to the soul in our minds. The organs of the body work in obedience to unchangeable laws, but, although they thus work, they are under the control of the soul, and, although we can explain never so exactly the mechanism that the soul puts in motion at its good pleasure, we cannot explain how it thinks and desires. Are we therefore to deny that it does think and desire? But I know what little value will attach to such comparisons in your eyes, for you will demand logical proof of the truth of my parallel, and this I cannot give you."

Ernestine was lost in thought. "I never should have conceived it possible that such a man as you are could believe in the existence of a God!"

"If you will listen, I will tell you how faith first entered into my heart. I was a wayward lad, just emancipated from the ignorant illusions of childhood, with a living desire for the Infinite in my heart,--longing to prove scientifically the existence of the God in whom I no longer believed. In my ignorance of myself, I naturally fell into the way of that spurious philosophy which the science of to-day looks back upon with contempt, and--to use Du Bois' words--racked my brain for awhile over the riddle of Being, human and divine. My affections were warm,--I loved those belonging to me, and especially my little sister Angelika. One day the child was taken dangerously ill, and, as she was more devoted to me than to any other member of the family, I watched with her through long nights with fraternal tenderness. The child suffered greatly, and one night in particular her cries fairly broke my heart. My mother at last took her little hands in her own, clasped them, and said, 'Pray, my darling,--pray to God. He may grant your prayer!' And the child, suppressing her sobs, cried, 'Ah, dear God, take away my pain!' And I--I flung myself upon my knees and prayed fervently, I knew not what,--I knew not to whom,--no matter! I prayed. I heard my mother's voice say Amen, and I repeated Amen,--almost unconsciously. The child was soothed, grew calm, looked up to heaven with childlike trust, then smiled upon us and went to sleep with her head upon my breast,--her first sound sleep after a week of suffering. I listened to her breathing, it was soft and regular. I was filled then with an emotion such as I had never before experienced,--tears came to my eyes. I could have embraced the world in my delight,--no, a world would not suffice me, I needed a God beside. What shall I say,--how explain it in words? Like the girl born blind, in the poem, that believed she saw when she loved, I loved the God to whom I had prayed, and because I loved Him I saw Him with my heart!"

He paused, and looked at Ernestine, who had listened with sympathy.

"That is the very essence of faith," he continued. "No reason can give it to you or take it from you. One single agonized moment taught me what science and philosophy had failed to teach. I found by the bedside of a child the God for whom my intellect had vainly searched earth and skies. From this time I learned to keep myself open to conviction. I now first became an exact physiologist. I no longer set fantastic bounds to science, I no longer adulterated my pure contemplation of nature with metaphysical notions, but confined myself strictly to the actual, and it never conflicted with my feelings, for Science itself pauses before the first cause of all Being, and says, 'Thus far, and no farther,' and here, where my knowledge ceases, my faith begins!"