As he labored on against the storm all thought of his present life and
activities dropped away from him; he lived entirely in the past. "What
is it in me," he thought, "that has made the difference between my life
and that of other men I know--that weakened me so with Kitty?" He
canvassed his own character, as a third person might have done.
The Christian, no doubt, would say that his married life had failed
because God had been absent from it, because there had been in it no
consciousness of higher law, of compelling grace.
Ashe pondered what such things might mean. "The Christian--in
speculative belief--fails under the challenge of life as often as other
men. Surely it depends on something infinitely more primitive and
fundamental than Christianity?--something out of which Christianity
itself springs? But this something--does it really exist--or am I only
cheating myself by fancying it? Is it, as all the sages have said, the
pursuit of some eternal good, the identification of the self with
it--the 'dying to live'? And is this the real meaning at the heart of
Christianity?--at the heart of all religion?--the everlasting meaning,
let science play what havoc it please with outward forms and
statements?"
Had he, perhaps,
doubted the soul?He groaned aloud.
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