all my habit of continual prayer and of realisation of His Presence—­all were against me now.  The very height of my trust was the measure of the shock when the trust gave way.  To me He was no abstract idea, but a living reality, and all my heart rose up against this Person in whom I believed, and whose individual finger I saw in my baby’s agony, my own misery, the breaking of my mother’s proud heart under a load of debt, and all the bitter suffering of the poor.  The presence of pain and evil in a world made by a good God; the pain falling on the innocent, as on my seven months’ old babe; the pain begun here reaching on into eternity unhealed; a sorrow-laden world; a lurid, hopeless hell; all these, while I still believed, drove me desperate, and instead of like the devils believing and trembling, I believed and hated.  All the hitherto dormant and unsuspected strength of my nature rose up in rebellion; I did not yet dream of denial, but I would no longer kneel.

As the first stirrings of this hot rebellion moved in my heart I met a clergyman of a very noble type, who did much to help me by his ready and wise sympathy.  Mr. Besant brought him to see me during the crisis of the child’s illness; he said little, but on the following day I received from him the following note:—­

“April 21, 1871.

“My Dear Mrs. Besant,—­I am painfully conscious that I gave you but little help in your trouble yesterday.  It is needless to say that it was not from want of sympathy.  Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that it was from excess of sympathy.  I shrink intensely from meddling with the sorrow of any one whom I feel to be of a sensitive nature.  ’The heart hath its own bitterness, and the stranger meddleth not therewith.’  It is to me a positively fearful thought that I might awaken such a reflection as

  “’And common was the commonplace,
  And vacant chaff well meant for grain.’

Conventional consolations, conventional verses out of the Bible, and conventional prayers are, it seems to me, an intolerable aggravation of suffering.  And so I acted on a principle that I mentioned to your husband that ’there is no power so great as that of one human faith looking upon another human faith.’  The promises of God, the love of Christ for little children, and all that has been given to us of hope and comfort, are as deeply planted in your heart as in mine, and I did not care to quote them.  But when I talk face to face with one who is in sore need of them, my faith in them suddenly becomes so vast and heart-stirring that I think I must help most by talking naturally, and letting the faith find its own way from soul to soul.  Indeed, I could not find words for it if I tried.  And yet I am compelled, as a messenger of the glad tidings of God, to solemnly assure you that all is well.  We have no key to the ‘mystery of pain’ excepting the Cross of Christ.  But there is another and a deeper solution in the hands of our Father; and it will be ours when we can understand it.  There is—­in the place to which we travelsome blessed explanation of your baby’s pain and your grief, which will fill with light the darkest heart.  Now you must believe without having seen; that is true faith.  You must