The idea of not having a Deity that he could not comprehend had long been one of Roswell Gardiner’s favourite rules of faith.  He did not understand by this pretending dogma, that he was, in any respect, of capacity equal to comprehend with that of the Divine Being, but simply that he was not to be expected or required to believe in any theory which manifestly conflicted with his knowledge and experience, as both were controlled by the powers of induction he had derived directly from his Creator.  In a word, his exception was one of the most obvious of the suggestions of the pride of reason, and just so much in direct opposition to the great law of regeneration, which has its very gist in the converse of this feeling —­Faith.

As our young master paced the terrace alone, that idea of the necessity of the Creator’s being incomprehensible to the created, recurred to him.  The hour that succeeded was probably the most important in Roswell Gardiners life.  So intense were his feelings, so active the workings of his mind, that he was quite insensible to the intensity of the cold; and his body keeping equal motion with his thoughts, if one may so express it, his frame actually set at defiance a temperature that might otherwise have chilled it, warmly and carefully as it was clad.

Truly there were many causes existing at that time and place, to bring any man to a just sense of his real position in the scale of created beings.  The vault above Roswell was sparkling with orbs floating in space, most of them far more vast than this earth, and each of them doubtless having its present or destined use.  What was that light, so brilliant and pervading throughout space, that converted each of those masses of dark matter into globes clothed with a glorious brightness?  Roswell had seen chemical experiments that produced wonderful illuminations; but faint, indeed, were the most glowing of those artificial torches, to the floods of light that came streaming out of the void, on missions of millions and millions of miles.  Who, and what was the Dread Being—­dread in his Majesty and Justice, but inexhaustible in Love and Mercy—­who used these exceeding means as mere instruments of his pleasure? and what was he himself, that he should presume to set up his miserable pride of reason, in opposition to a revelation supported by miracles that must be admitted to come through men inspired by the Deity, or rejected altogether?

In this frame of mind Roswell was made to see that Christianity admitted of no half-way belief; it was all true, or it was wholly false.

And why should not Christ be the Son of God, as the Fathers of the Church had perseveringly, but so simply proclaimed, and as that church had continued to teach for eighteen centuries?  Roswell believed himself to have been created in the image of God; and his much-prized reason told him that he could perpetuate himself in successors:  and that which the Creator had given him the power to achieve, could he not in his own person perform?  For the first time, an inference to the contrary seemed to be illogical.