Which is the true? a loving, caring father, or the grinding of
cruel poverty and the naked exposure to heedless chance? How is it
that, while the former seems the only right, reasonable, and
all-sufficing thing, it should yet come more naturally to believe in
the latter? And yet, when I think of it, I never did come closer to
believing in the latter than is indicated by terror of its possible
truth--so many things looked like it.--Then, what has nature in
common with the Bible and its metaphysics?--There I am wrong--she
has a thousand things. The very wind on my face seems to rouse me to
fresh effort after a pure healthy life! Then there is the sunrise!
There is the snowdrop in the snow! There is the butterfly! There is
the rain of summer, and the clearing of the sky after a storm! There
is the hen gathering her chickens under her wing!--I begin to doubt
whether there be the common-place anywhere except in our own
mistrusting nature, that will cast no care upon the Unseen. It is
with me, in regard to my better life, as it was with the disciples
in regard to their bodily life, when they were for the time rendered
incapable of understanding the words of our Lord by having forgotten
to take bread in the boat: they were so afraid of being hungry that
they could think of nothing but bread.
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