e mental hearing, listening
as an ear placed amid still mountains, could gather into itself from
afar the slip and fall of avalanches. Whole systems of belief which had
chilled the soul for centuries, dropped off like icebergs into the
warming sea and drifted away, melting into nothingness.

The minds of many men, witnessing this double ruin by flame and
earthquake, are at such times filled with consternation: to them it
seems that nothing will survive, that beyond these cataclysms there
will never again be stability and peace--a new and better age, safer
footing, wider horizons, clearer skies.

It was so now. The literature of the New Science was followed by a
literature of new Doubt and Despair. But both of these were followed by
yet another literature which rejected alike the New Science and the New
Doubt, and stood by all that was included under the old beliefs. The
voices of these three literatures filled the world: they were the
characteristic notes of that half-century, heard sounding together: the
Old Faith, the New Science, the New Doubt. And they met at a single
point; they met at man's place in Nature, at the idea of God, and in
that system of thought and creed which is Christianity.

It was at this sublime meeting-place of the Great Three that this
untrained and simple lad soon arrived--searching for the truth. Here he
began to listen to them, one after another: reading a little in science
(he was not prepared for that), a little in the old faith, but most in
the new doubt. For this he was ready; toward this he had been driven.

Its earliest effects were soon exhibited in him as a student. He
performed all required work, slighted no class, shirked no rule,
transgressed no restriction. But he asked no questions of any man now,
no longer roved distractedly among the sects, took no share in the
discussions rife in his own church. There were changes more
significant: he ceased to attend the Bible students' prayer-meeting at
the college or the prayer-meeting of the congregation in the town; he
would not say grace at those evening suppers of the Disciples; he
declined the Lord's Supper; his voice was not heard in the choir. He
was, singularly enough, in regular attendance at morning and night
services of the church; but he entered timidly, apologetically, sat as
near as possible to the door, and slipped out a little before the
people were dismissed: his eyes had been fixed respectfully on his
pastor throughout