eeling, and as I watched my baby in its agony, and felt
so helpless to relieve, more than once the indignant cry broke from my
lips: "How canst thou torture a baby so? What has she done that she
should suffer so? Why dost thou not kill her at once, and let her be at
peace?" More than once I cried aloud: "O God, take the child, but do not
torment her." All my personal belief in God, all my intense faith in his
constant direction of affairs, all my habit of continual prayer and of
realisation of his presence, were against me now. To me he was not an
abstract idea, but a living reality, and all my mother-heart rose up in
rebellion against this person in whom I believed, and whose individual
finger I saw in my baby's agony.

At this time I met a clergyman--I do not give his name lest I should
injure him--whose wider and more liberal views of Christianity exercised
much influence over me during the months of struggle that followed. Mr.
Besant had brought him to me while the child was at her worst, and I
suppose something of the "Why is it?" had, unconsciously to me, shown
itself to his keen eyes. On the day after his visit, I received from him
the following letter, in which unbeliever as well as believer may
recognise the deep human sympathy and noble nature of the writer:--

"April 21st, 1871.

"MY DEAR MRS. BESANT,--I am painfully conscious that I gave you but
little help in your trouble yesterday. It is needless to say that it was
not from want of sympathy. Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say
that it was from excess of sympathy. I shrink intensely from meddling
with the sorrow of anyone whom I feel to be of a sensitive nature.

'The heart hath its own bitterness, and the stranger meddleth not
therewith.'

It is to me a positively fearful thought that I might await a reflection
as

'And common was the common place,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain'.

Conventional consolations, conventional verses out of the Bible and
conventional prayers are, it seems to me, an intolerable aggravation of
suffering. And so I acted on a principle that I mentioned to your
husband, that 'there is no power so great as that of one human faith
looking upon another human faith'. The promises of God, the love of
Christ for little children, and all that has been given to us of hope and
comfort, are as deeply planted in your heart as in mine, and I did not
care to quote them. But when I talk face to face with one who is in so