eral, she firmly believed
that everybody who failed to have a saving faith in the vicarious
atonement of Christ would be lost. In particular, she excepted many
individual cases among her own acquaintance. And the inconsistency
between her creed and her applications of it never troubled her. She
spoke with so much confidence of the salvation of little Kate, that she
comforted Albert somewhat, notwithstanding his entire antagonism to Isa's
system of theology. If Albert had died, Miss Marlay would have fixed up a
short and easy road to bliss for him also. So much, more generous is
faith than logic! But it was not so much Isa's belief in the salvation of
Katy that did Albert good, as it was her tender and delicate sympathy,
expressed as much when she was silent as when she spoke, and when she
spoke expressed more by the tones of her voice than by her words.

There was indeed one part of Isabel's theology that Charlton would have
much liked to possess. He had accepted the idea of an Absolute God. A
personal, sympathizing, benevolent Providence was in his opinion one of
the illusions of the theologic stage of human development. Things
happened by inexorable law, he said. And in the drowning of Katy he saw
only the overloading of a boat and the inevitable action of water upon
the vital organs of the human system. It seemed to him now an awful thing
that such great and terrible forces should act irresistibly and blindly.
He wished he could find some ground upon which to base a different
opinion. He would like to have had Isabel's faith in the Paternity of God
and in the immortality of the soul. But he was too honest with himself to
suffer feeling to exert any influence on his opinions. He was in the
logical stage of his development, and built up his system after the
manner of the One-Hoss Shay. Logically he could not see sufficient ground
to change, and he scorned the weakness that would change an opinion
because of feeling. His soul might cry out in its depths for a Father in
the universe. But what does Logic care for a Soul or its cry? After a
while a wider experience brings in something better than Logic. This is
Philosophy. And Philosophy knows what Logic can not learn, that reason is
not the only faculty by which truth is apprehended--that the hungers and
intuitions of the Soul are worth more than syllogisms.

Do what he would, Charlton could not conceal from himself that in
sympathy Miss Minorkey was greatly deficient. Sh