created by your imagination out of certain passages in the Old Testament is a God who doesn't exist. Let Him die, and cling to the God you honour and reverence. He is the true God, the other is a phantom! Poor Jael! I admire her very much. I see nothing so hateful in a lonely woman trying to protect herself against her enemy as a woman only could protect herself if it were not in the Bible, I believe you would admire her! I should admire you, in time of war, if you had the courage to act so against the enemy of your country, and he who would destroy the worship of your God.

Surely no one ever loved God as a Christian can, and no one ever found such a conception of God as St. John or St. Paul (I think even you would grant that), yet they both were brought up upon the Old Testament. Therefore the teaching of the Old Testament does not of necessity leave so terrible an impression on everyone's mind as it has on yours! Think this outthe highest and most spiritual conception of God that the world has ever known was given to the world by men trained in the Old Testament. And you will please not forget that that beautiful God, that you were taught was the God of Theism, is the God that Theists only believe in so far as they believe in the Revelation of Christ-don't forget that. The fact is, your mind is really steeped in the spirit of Christianity and you have got hold of some isolated fragments of the Old Testament that seem to you to mar the beauty of your Christian ideal. Well, I beg you cling to your ideal. You wouldn't have it if you weren't born in a Christian land-worship, love, pray to that God, and don't bother your head about what seems to mar His perfection; you're

not a Jew, you're a Christian, so let the Jews go their way! I won't ask you now to say you believe in the Old Testament, because your idea of it is exaggerated and really amounts to being untrue. Don't try to force your mind into believing in a God that seems hateful to you; keep hold of the God you feel you do believe in, and pray to Him earnestly for the knowledge of perfect truth. Now, I think you can't accuse me of being narrow-minded! Yet I am quite sincere in what I say.

So now take courage: say your prayers-don't try to force yourself to believe-do all you know you ought-keep your mind, and above all your heart, open to conviction and to illumination. He that doeth the Commandment shall know of the doctrine.' I don't feel the least discouraged at anything you have said. I would rather much you would be quite honest and open; don't work yourself into an unreal state of mind-the light will come if you turn your eyes towards it. Perhaps the clouds will roll away in a moment and you'll see all clearly, or perhaps a slow, quiet conviction will creep over your soul, but the time will come, I know, when you will say like the Samaritan, ' Now I believe, not because thou didst tell me, but because I have seen with my own eyes.' I pray God nearly every day that you may have that light-whether sooner or later we may leave to Him. If the struggle is long, your character will grow all the more by the length of the struggle; if you die struggling, though all is darker than ever, yet you will have won the battle. The only defeat possible is the deliberate abandonment of effort, and God will keep you from that.

38

To the Same

June 16, 1891.

I found the following quotation in my notebook by accident. I don't know where I took it from.

It is true men can't find their belief suddenly by an effort of will, so as not to believe what they dislike, and to believe what they wish; but it is also true that a moral bias within has the greatest influence on the decisions of the understanding. The two powers though distinct closely react upon one another. Men can choose and refuse to listen to the evidence in the court of the soul; they can play the part of advocate and browbeat witnesses whose evidence they dislike, and follow blindly all that favours the issue they desire to follow. Sceptical minds can make mountains out of molehills, and vault with ease over mountains of evidence that stand in their way.'

I think we all feel how true this is in some people we know; it's hard often to see how true it is in ourselves.

I told you, you will remember some day, that I never doubted you will one day come out of the furnace purified and strong.

39

To the Same

September 6, 1891.

As to the sense of almost impossibility to believe that God could take man's nature, two things you must remember:

(1) Such feeling of awe and amazement is right and may be a help to reverent faith. It was what David felt when he considered the moon and the stars which God ordained: When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained. What is man that Thou art mindful of him? and the Son of Man that thou visitest him?' The Bible therefore recognises and gives a place to such feelings of wonder.

(2) But we must remember also that we do not really know what man is. It is generally believed that when God made man first it was with the intention of Himself taking that nature—the Passion, etc., was a result of man's sin, but the Incarnation probably was always part of God's plan. Therefore man's nature has an important place in God's eternal plan. We see ourselves here struggling with sin, but we do not know what we are or what we are capable of; we indeed feel that however great the world it is not to be compared for value to one human life. We act upon this; it's not a mystical theory, it's a practical principle.

As to women. Roman and Greek civilisation was in its way as great as our own-yet look at women there. Women have a place in Christian civilisation they never had anywhere else. In all the brilliant civilisation of the ancient world nothing like the Christian home was known, nothing like Christian public charities and philanthropy. I think this is quite undeniable. Look at women amongst Mohammedans, look at Mohammedan civilisation-what is it? There's no nation in Europe which is considered in politics which is not Christian. Christianity takes the lead in all civilisation.

I must end in haste.

40

To the Same

November 28, 1891.

Your letter came when I had no time to breathe. I need not say it made me sad-a deliberate decision to give up a struggle is always inexpressibly sad. Truth is worth contending for, and what has always and everywhere helped those who believed it to be better men and women must be worth a long struggle before one gives up and says, 'They are all deceived, there's nothing in it.' To my mind Christianity is so beautiful a dream, if only a dream, that one would prefer to sleep through life and dream on, than be awakened and see nothing. For there is nothing to take its place; it's an utter self-deception to talk of Theism the Theism you speak of and Voysey speaks of is a Theism with the light of Christianity shining on it. We know what the barren pre-Christian Theism was its records are written in the history of idolatry and polytheism. No, you must put away the idea that Theism apart from Christianity can be the very least consolation. I do not know that God is good-I am sure He is not love. I am not certain, in fact quite uncertain, that He is Almighty-He seems to be most unjust. Conscience gets no rest, sin no pardon, and of what lies beyond we have absolutely no knowledge-no positive assurance that there is anything beyond the grave. Well, I find all Christianity bids me believe easier than this, and it certainly does not tax either reason or conscience to the same extent.

I am writing in great haste as I am very busy today. You know how I wish and am always glad if I can help you.