nstances of all of which were
notorious enough even to be known at a girls' school. Beth said very
little, however; but she determined to read the Bible through from
beginning to end, and see for herself if she could detect any grounds
for the mischief-making doubts and controversies she had been hearing
about. She began in full faith, but was brought up short at the very
outset by the discrepancy between the first and second chapters of
Genesis, which she perceived for the first time. She went steadily on,
however, until she had finished the Book of Job, and then she paused
in revolt. She could not reconcile the dreadful experiment which had
entailed unspeakable suffering and loss irreparable upon a good man
with any attribute she had been accustomed to revere in her deity.
There might be some explanation to excuse this game of god and devil,
but until she knew the excuse she would vow no adhesion to a power
whose conduct on that occasion seemed contrary to every canon of
justice and mercy. She did not belong to the servile age when men,
forgetting their manhood, fawned on patrons for what they could get,
and cringingly accepted favours from the dirtiest hands. Even her God
must be worthy to help her, worthy to be loved, good as well as great.
The God who connived at the torment of Job could not be the God of her
salvation.

Beth had spoken casually in class. She had never questioned her
religion, and would not have done so now if the remark had been
allowed to pass; but the fuss that was made about it, and the severity
with which she was rebuked, by putting her mind into a critical
attitude, had the effect of concentrating her attention on the
subject; so that it was the very precautions which were taken to check
her supposed scepticism that first made her sceptical. The immediate
consequence was that she gave up preaching and refused to be
confirmed. Miss Clifford, Miss Crow, and the chaplain argued,
expostulated, and punished in vain. It was the first case of the kind
that had occurred in the school, and Beth was treated as a criminal;
but she felt more like a martyr, and was not to be moved. She did not
try to make partisans for herself, however; on the contrary, she
deserted her family as well as her congregation, and took to wandering
about alone again; but she was not unhappy. Her old faith had gone, it
is true, but it had left the way prepared for a new one. She did not
believe in the God of Job--because she w