reat. She had a
way of listening to sermons that would have been very disheartening to
the preacher if he had known of it. She had learned how to divest
herself of all personality. The subject was one that had nothing to do
with her; the application of solemn truths were for the people around
her who believed in these things, but never for her; so she listened and
enjoyed, just as she enjoyed a book or a picture, just as if she had no
soul at all, nothing but an intellect.

It was very rare indeed that an arrow from any one's quiver touched her.
But there was one single sentence in Dr. Pierce's sermon that was
destined to haunt her. Said he: "When the blind man was questioned he
couldn't argue, he didn't try to; but he could stand up there before
them and say, 'Whereas I was blind, now I see; make the most of that.'
And wasn't it an unanswerable argument? There is no argument like it.
When men are honest and earnest and spiritual in Wall Street, it tells."

Now that was just the kind of sentence to delight Marion's heart. The
inconsistencies of Christians was one of her very strong points, she
saw them bristling out everywhere, and she looked about her with a
satisfied smile on her face that so large a company of them were getting
so sharp a thrust as this.

And suddenly there flashed across her brain an utterly new thought.
"Whereas I was _blind_, now I see." "Perhaps," she said to
herself--"_perhaps_ I am blind. What if that should be the only reason
why these things are not to me as they are to others. How do I know,
after all, but there may really be a spiritual blindness, and that it
may be holding me? How do I know but that the reason some of these poor
ignorant people whom I meet are so firm in their belief of Christ and
heaven is because they have had just this experience?

"'Whereas I _was_ blind, now I see!' How can I possibly tell but that
this may be the case? I wonder what I _do_ think anyway? Do I really
think that all these men gathered here are either deceived or deceivers?
One or the other they must be--and either position is too silly to
sustain--or else I must be blind. If there should be such a thing as
seeing, and I discover it too late! If there is a too late to this
thing, and I do not find it out simply because I am blind, what then?
The sun shines, of course, though I dare say an entirely blind man
doesn't believe it. Doesn't have an idea anyway what it is--how can he?"

Over and over did s