manhood, the invisible
hand of God leads, protects, and nourishes the inward being; the
_nursling of the outward_ educates and polishes and makes it
beautiful--and wherefore? That when it stands as a demigod in the
midst of the ruins of the temple of the body, the blow of death may
prostrate it forever, that nothing shall remain from the
corpse-veiled, the mourning and mantled immeasurable universe, but
the eternally sowing, never harvesting, solitary spirit of the
world! One eternity looking despairingly at the other; and in the
whole spiritual universe no end, no aim! And all these
contradictions and riddles, whereby not merely the harmony, but the
very _strings_ of creation are tangled, must we take, merely on
account of the difficulties, that, indeed, our annihilation cannot
solve? Beloved Carlson! into this harmony of the spheres, that is
not _over_, but ever _around_ us, will you bring your shrieking
discord? See how gently and touchingly the day departs, and how
holily the night comes! Oh, can you not believe that even thus our
spirits shall arise from the dust, as you once saw the full moon
arise over the crater of Vesuvius?'

"Gione took his hand and said:--

"'Amongst us all, will you alone be tormented with this despairing
faith?'

"Two hot drops fell from his blinded eyes; he looked at the
mountains, and said:--

"'I can bear no annihilation but my own. My _heart_ is of your
opinion; my _head_ will slowly follow.'"

"And that, sir," said Ormsby, closing the book and putting it into his
side pocket, "is just where I am. My heart is with you; if only my head
would follow. Put Bittra for Gione, and you will understand my emotion."

"Even that won't do," I said; "the head might follow, and you might be
as far from us as ever."

"I don't understand," he said in a bewildered way. "Surely all that's
wanting now is a conviction of the truth of your teaching?"

"There's your grave mistake," I replied; "conviction is not faith. There
are thousands of your countrymen filled with conviction of the truths of
Catholicity; but they are as far outside the Church as a Confucian or a
Buddhist. Faith is not a matter to be acquired by reading or knowledge.
It is a gift, like the natural talent of a great painter or musician--a
sixth sense, and the pure gratuity of the All-Wise and the All-Good."