"Will you tell me what ground you have for the foundation of the religious theory contained in your book, 'A Romance of Two Worlds'? Is it a part of your own belief? I am MOST anxious to know this, and I am sure you will be kind enough to answer me. Till I read your book I thought myself an Agnostic, but now I am not quite sure of this. I do not believe in the Deity as depicted by the Churches. I CANNOT. Over and over again I have asked myself--If there is a G.o.d, why should He be angry? It would surely be easy for Him to destroy this world entirely as one would blow away an offending speck of dust, and it would be much better and BRAVER for Him to do this than to torture His creation. For I call life a torture and certainly a useless and cruel torture if it is to end in annihilation. I know I seem to be blasphemous in these remarks, yet if you only knew what I suffer sometimes! I desire, I LONG to believe. YOU seem so certain of your Creed--a Creed so n.o.ble, reasonable and humane--the G.o.d you depict so worthy of the adoration of a Universe. I BEG of you to tell me--DO you feel sure of this beneficent all-pervading Love concerning which you write so eloquently?

I do not wish to seem an intruder on your most secret thought. I want to believe that YOU believe--and if I felt this, the tenor of my whole life might change. Help me if you can--I stand in real need of help.

You may judge I am very deeply in earnest, or I should not have written to you.

"Yours faithfully,

"A. W. L."

Of such letters as these I have received enough to make a volume of themselves; but I think the ten I have selected are sufficient to show how ardent and inextinguishable is the desire or STRAINING UPWARD, like a flower to the light, of the human Soul for those divine things which nourish it. Scarcely a day pa.s.ses without my receiving more of these earnest and often pathetic appeals for a little help, a little comfort, a little guidance, enough to make one's heart ache at the thought of so much doubt and desolation looming cloud-like over the troubled minds of many who would otherwise lead not only happy but n.o.ble and useful lives. When will the preachers learn to preach Christ simply--Christ without human dogmas or differences? When shall we be able to enter a building set apart for sacred worship--a building of finest architectural beauty, "glorious without and within," like the "King's Daughter" of David's psalm--glorious with, light, music, flowers, and art of the n.o.blest kind (for Art is G.o.d's own inspiration to men, and through it He should be served), there to hear the pure, unselfish doctrine of Christ as He Himself preached it? For such a temple, the time has surely come--a nook sacred to G.o.d, and untainted by the breath of Mammon, where we could adore our Creator "in spirit and in truth."

The evils of nineteenth-century cynicism and general flippancy of thought--great evils as they are and sure prognostications of worse evils to come--cannot altogether crush out the Divine flame burning in the "few" that are "chosen," though these few are counted as fools and dreamers. Yet they shall be proved wise and watchful ere long. The signs of the times are those that indicate an approaching great upheaval and change in human destinies. This planet we call ours is in some respects like ourselves: it was born; it has had its infancy, its youth, its full prime; and now its age has set in, and with age the first beginnings of decay. Absorbed once more into the Creative Circle IT MUST BE; and when again thrown forth among its companion-stars, our race will no more inhabit it. We shall have had our day--our little chance--we shall have lost or won. Christ said, "This generation shall not pa.s.s away till all My words be fulfilled," the word "generation"

thus used meaning simply the human race. We put a very narrow limit to the significance of the Saviour's utterance when we imagine that the generation He alluded to implied merely the people living in His own day. In the depths of His Divine wisdom He was acquainted with all the secrets of the Past and Future; He had no doubt seen this very world peopled by widely different beings to ourselves, and knew that what we call the human race is only a pa.s.sing tribe permitted for a time to sojourn here. What a strangely presumptuous idea is that which pervades the minds of the majority of persons--namely, that Mankind, as we know it, must be the highest form of creation, simply because it is the highest form WE can see! How absurd it is to be so controlled by our limited vision, when we cannot even perceive the minute wonders that a b.u.t.terfly beholds, or pierce the sunlit air with anything like the facility possessed by the undazzled eyes of an upward-soaring bird!

Nay, we cannot examine the wing of a common house-fly without the aid of a microscope--to observe the facial expression of our own actors on the stage we look through opera-gla.s.ses--to form any idea of the wonders of the stars we construct telescopes to a.s.sist our feeble and easily deluded sight; and yet--yet we continue to parcel out the infinite gradations of creative Force and Beauty entirely to suit our own private opinions, and conclude that WE are the final triumph of the Divine Artist's Supreme Intelligence! Alas! in very truth we are a sorry spectacle both to our soberly thinking selves and the Higher Powers, invited, as it were, to spend our life's brief day in one of G.o.d's gardens as His friends and guests, who certainly are not expected to abuse their Host's hospitality, and, ignoring Him, call themselves the owners and masters of the ground! For we are but wanderers beneath the sun; a "generation" which must most surely and rapidly "pa.s.s away"

to make room for another; and as the work of the Universe is always progressive, that other will be of n.o.bler capacity and larger accomplishment. So while we are here, let us think earnestly of the few brief chances remaining to us--they grow fewer every hour. On one side is the endless, glorious heritage of the purely aspiring, Immortal Spirit; on the other the fleeting Mirage of this our present Existence; and, midway between the two, the swinging pendulum of HUMAN WILL, which decides our fate. G.o.d does not choose for us, or compel our love--we are free to fashion out our own futures; but in making our final choice we cannot afford to waste one moment of our precious, unreturning time.

MARIE CORELLI.