FAITH

I think it does not matter so much what we believe as what we want to believe,—the desire seems to me greater than the accomplishment. They say “men live by hope,” but I feel men must live by faith or else they perish. Or perhaps faith and hope are very closely akin— one being the Touch of God, and the other being the Breath of a Divine Perfume He has tossed out upon the world, so that man might still find a smile where there seemed only to be tears. Today I do not feel that I am groping my way as I have heretofore done, but a strange exaltation is in me as though a star had caught in my hair, or as if a piece of the moon had come down and brushed against my cheek. I wonder could you understand if I told you why? If I tell you that for days and nights my soul has been writhing in a corner of darkness,— oppressed by a thousand apprehensions and crushed by the weight of fear? Until today no light has come its way and yet do you know that in that solitude and stillness I have been conscious of a little something stirring in me and trying to make me believe that help would come? But the dreariness came again and strange grotesque shapes pressed about me and bade me let go and sink and sink.... Then I lay despairing and could not move or raise my eyes—but suddenly, when my faith had almost ceased to be.... God put out His Hand and, stooping down—touched me!