"You speak well, but you do not convince me," said Ernestine sadly.
"I see. I know that the remedy for your disease does not lie in the words or the example of others, but in your own experience. I prophesy, if you are ever overwhelmed by a moment of despair, that you will waken to the need of that God whom you now ignore. Even were it not to be so, I could only pity you, for a woman who cannot pray is a bird with broken wings. I maintain that there is no woman who does not believe,--for there is none who does not fear, and fear looks in reverence to God, whether as avenging justice or protecting love, to which to flee when all other aid fails. Can you be the sole exception to this rule?"
"I hope so," said Ernestine proudly. "I am not one of those weaklings who dread danger in the dark. I look every phantom of terror boldly in the face, and can recognize its natural origin. I fear nothing, and have no need of a God."
"You fear nothing?" asked Johannes, and then, struck by a sudden thought, added, "Not even death?"
"Not even death! I know that I am but a part of universal matter, and must return to it again. What is there to fear? The dissolution of a personal existence in the great sum of things,--the transformation of one substance into another? Since I learned to think, I have constantly pondered this great law of nature, and have accustomed myself to consider my insignificant existence only as part and parcel of the wondrous transmutation of matter perpetually taking place in the universe. Only when we have attained this conviction can we smilingly renounce our vain claim to individual immortality, and see in death the due tribute that we pay to nature for our life."
"Indeed? And you imagine that this consolation will stand you in stead when the time really comes for you to descend into that dark abyss which is illuminated for you by no ray of faith or hope?"
"I am sure of it."
"And if you were plunged into it before the appointed time?"
"I should not quarrel with the measure of existence that nature accorded me."
"You would not, however, curtail that existence intentionally?"