Chapter VI: And Then to Doubt

“I believe,” said Aunt Jane, “that one of the numerous causes of doubt in the truth of Revelation is that we have difficulty in realising the idea of a continuity of perfect happiness. The capacity for joy in some natures is so infinite, yet it is so seldom realised, that we are almost unable to contemplate its fulfilment. Moderate or equally-toned minds can more easily imagine the continuity of the degree of happiness they often, perhaps generally, experience, and, therefore, they seem to be better Christians.”

“Very likely,” said I, “and the music I often hear in my ears is more beautiful than any I ever heard in reality; and the happiness I sometimes causelessly feel is so far beyond my usually depressed sensations, that I have the greatest difficulty in believing that I can ever attain a permanence of such heavenly joy--still less do I feel worthy ever to enjoy it.”

“The strongest natural or internal evidence of the existence and superintendence of a loving God,” said Aunt Jane--“the Being whom Scriptures describe as knowing the very number of the hairs of our head--is the feeling of repose and confidence we sometimes have of being thus cared for at those moments when the world and our best friends seem to desert us, or when we lose them by death or separation. Thank God, I have often been blessed with this apparently miraculous peace and confidence in the existence and goodness of my Maker. Gratitude is the most natural source of love. We cannot love God with all our hearts, as we are commanded to do, unless we feel grateful to Him, and we cannot feel grateful if we allow ourselves to imagine that we deserved more happiness or pleasure than we got. It is imperative to be humble and cheerful, if we wish to love God, or even to believe in Him. No person who indulges in pride and discontent _can_ do so. Nothing,” continued Aunt Jane, after a pause, “preserves us so well from the self-pity, which is often our most depressing misery, as a thorough consciousness of our own unworthiness. It is only when we indulge in a feeling of self-righteousness, such as, ‘Lord, I thank Thee that I am not such as these,’ &c. It is then we most feel the injuries which circumstances, or ill-natured or stupid people, have made us suffer. There is a degree of happiness in thorough humility--_i.e._, consciousness of sin and error--which I believe many people are not cognizant of; it mitigates the agony of those bitter tears which we allow ourselves to shed when we are ill-treated, and believe we have not deserved the apparent unkindness or ingratitude of friends, or the slights and neglects of those we love. Remorse is a sad suffering, but an absence of it, which leads to self-elation under injustice, is sadder still.”

“Surely,” I said, “unbelief cannot proceed from pride in me? Surely it is that I cannot feel worthy of such great good--such a blessing as eternal spiritual happiness! Oh! how have I prayed to some unseen Power that I might be enabled to see daylight and belief in Revelation. Unceasingly, day and night, and even in my sleep, I sometimes awake suddenly, clasping my hands, and crying in agony for help in my unbelief. It is impossible that pride can prevent my belief, pride--which is certainly often the cause of doubt and rejection of Scripture. Yes, I am full of humility; but that is because I am really bad--thoroughly so. When I look back at all the wrong things I have done, I am quite horrified! Now, I love Norah,” I continued, “chiefly because she is so humble, and because humility is beautiful. It commands admiration. It must be pleasant to see and hear persons who love, or revere, or look up to something ‘better than themselves,’ rather than to see persons who consider themselves the best that can exist. Therefore religious, and even superstitious people are more to be admired than infidel independent ones. I am afraid the excessive tolerance of my father, and the rather silly superstition of my mother, made me too indifferent, in years gone by, to all religion. I shrank from the subject.”

“Those,” replied Aunt Jane, “who are, like Norah, endowed with a natural spirit of harmony, can understand the Christian religion and the Scriptures, even without the aid of either tradition or the teachings of a visible church. The most harmonious Pagan minds whose works have come down to us have been actuated by this truly harmonious spirit. Plato had it in such a high degree that he seemed to have a foretaste of the real doctrines of Scripture, and of the consequent necessity for the Atonement. To those who have not this spirit of harmony the Scripture becomes as discordant and unintelligible as the musical scales do to those bad players who have no musical ear, and consequently make discords: and jumbling, horrible sounds are all they can draw forth. Probably my spirit of harmony led me to imagine that some can attain goodness even without the teaching of the visible Church.”

“Ah! I see what you mean,” I replied. “In meditating on harmony, one certainly finds help to belief.”

“Another ray of hope you will find,” she continued, “by reasoning from the analogy of society. I mean that, when we are in the company of strangers, it is certainly better taste to judge of or speak to them with the kind courtesy which ‘hopeth all things,’ which expects to find some good in them rather than evil. Should some of them even have bad countenances, it is better--better even for those who are not thinking or acting on Christian precepts. It shows better feeling to be kind, and wish, at all events, to discover some good in them. I suppose confirmed infidels or unbelievers would agree with me on this point, because they must probably wish for good instead of evil in their fellow-creatures. Well, on reasoning from analogy, is it not better to think that some good design for our future happiness causes the apparent state of present misery which the majority of mankind suffer--to think that there is a Being who wishes us well? Is this not more likely than their idea that chance, or what they call the Laws of Nature, caused this present suffering in human nature; which of course they must think perfectly useless, unless it tends to some future good to each suffering individual. Does not analogy as well as common sense point towards a superintending Creator, who allows us to suffer and choose our own future lot of endless happiness or misery? We _must_ suppose either the one or the other, that the suffering of this world was given to purify us, and increase our eternal happiness; _or_ that everything has created itself, for the sole purpose of tending to decay, and developing a set of beings which must necessarily suffer in proportion to the increased power and perfection of their nature; for no one can deny that the more intellectual and perfect human nature becomes, the more it _must_ crave for a continuance of happiness, the more its greatest minds must wish for the intellectual enjoyments, unshackled by the necessary sufferings of its body. No one can say that the human body is less liable to suffering than it was in the early periods of the world; on the contrary, it always seems much more liable to suffering in proportion to its greater intellectual development, then as now.”