“I am wonderfully unsettled and uneasy somehow.... I do believe this terrible sort of logical doubt of Theism that enters in—_not_ un- faith, but a failure of the abiding surety—an entrance of the admission how possibly _reasonable_ Atheism may be—hurts horribly.
Oh for the ‘_I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not_‘!—and doubtless one has it,—both in ’_Neither pray I for these alone_,’ and also in those who live and love one, Mother and Octa....
L.’s absence of sympathy weighs heavily. Hitherto all my friends have met me here,—she does not. ‘All the help she ever got, she got from herself and her will.’ Not from the Bible or hymns, etc. She calls herself a theist, but it seems to me to run close to practical atheism....”
“Oct. 29th. She _is_ so good! Told her something of today’s pain, she so sympathizing and good! Believed that the struggle was part of the sequence of early training and later reaction into ‘wider faith’—what many had to go through one time or another. I spoke of herself,—asked her what practical difference she would find if an atheist. ‘Not much generally,’ she thought, but in trouble she did pray. She couldn’t help it, and believed it was good, and when her friends died she was happier. ‘When she thought of it, she felt very sure about God, but very seldom did stop to think. She was sure her first duty was her work, etc. and then she had small time and sense left.
I said lives not continually lived as seeing Him who is invisible would be worth but little; she said Then her’s was so, and many others. So I retracted hastily. ‘At least _mine_ would be.’
Perhaps her’s is actually higher and more childlike. ‘He will care for my soul,’[39] as it were.”
“Nov. 13th. Looking at p. 253, ‘the Ministry?’, I ask whether the sort of spiritual speechlessness—almost deadness—is not perhaps a merciful answer to that question. Clearly I can’t preach now.”
“Nov. 24th. This temptation to medicine is pretty strong in some ways, both as to present study and future life.... But ‘not each on all’ come the claims,—_this_ is surely already responded to, and will surely grow without me.
I feel as if my work would not [how little she knew!] as if, at least, it was given _me_ to do and needed most of all my labour.