but I do not now feel quite so sure that the contemplation of all the multitude of remote worlds does not tend to weaken the idea of a personal Deity.  It is not so much that nebular theory which worries me, when I think about this subject, as a kind of bewilderment when I try to conceive of a consciousness filling all those frightful blanks of space they talk about.  I sometimes doubt whether that young man worships anything but the stars.  They tell me that many young students of science like him never see the inside of a church.  I cannot help wishing they did.  It humanizes people, quite apart from any higher influence it exerts upon them.  One reason, perhaps, why they do not care to go to places of worship is that they are liable to hear the questions they know something about handled in sermons by those who know very much less about them.  And so they lose a great deal.  Almost every human being, however vague his notions of the Power addressed, is capable of being lifted and solemnized by the exercise of public prayer.  When I was a young girl we travelled in Europe, and I visited Ferney with my parents; and I remember we all stopped before a chapel, and I read upon its front, I knew Latin enough to understand it, I am pleased to say,—­Deo erexit Voltaire.  I never forgot it; and knowing what a sad scoffer he was at most sacred things, I could not but be impressed with the fact that even he was not satisfied with himself, until he had shown his devotion in a public and lasting form.

We all want religion sooner or later.  I am afraid there are some who have no natural turn for it, as there are persons without an ear for music, to which, if I remember right, I heard one of you comparing what you called religious genius.  But sorrow and misery bring even these to know what it means, in a great many instances.  May I not say to you, my friend, that I am one who has learned the secret of the inner life by the discipline of trials in the life of outward circumstance?  I can remember the time when I thought more about the shade of color in a ribbon, whether it matched my complexion or not, than I did about my spiritual interests in this world or the next.  It was needful that I should learn the meaning of that text, “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.”

Since I have been taught in the school of trial I have felt, as I never could before, how precious an inheritance is the smallest patrimony of faith.  When everything seemed gone from me, I found I had still one possession.  The bruised reed that I had never leaned on became my staff.  The smoking flax which had been a worry to my eyes burst into flame, and I lighted the taper at it which has since guided all my footsteps.  And I am but one of the thousands who have had the same experience.  They have been through the depths of affliction, and know the needs of the human soul.  It will find its God in the unseen,—­Father, Saviour, Divine Spirit, Virgin Mother, it must and will breathe its longings and its griefs into the heart of a Being capable of understanding all its necessities and sympathizing with all its woes.