“O, yes, you will, and then these sullen vapors of doubt will roll off before the sunlight of domestic happiness.  It will allure you to love Him who has given you so much to love.  Yes,” said I, gayly, “I shall visit you one day in happier moods; when you will wonder how you could have indulged all your present thoughts of God and the universe.  As you gaze into the face of innocent childhood, which shows you what faith in God is by trust in you, you will say, ’Heaven shield the boy from being what his father has been?’—­you will feel that such thoughts as yours will not do, as the world says; and we shall all go together, you with your wife on your arm, to church there in the in the bright sun and deep quiet of a Sabbath morning, and amidst the music of the Sabbath bells; and as the tranquil scene steals into your very soul, you will say, ’No, scepticism was not made for man.’”

“It is a pleasant romance,” he replied, gloomily, “and nothing more.  I shall never love, and shall therefore never wed; though, I suppose, that does not logically follow.  However, it does with me; and, consequently, I presume the children are also only in posse.  However, what is this instance of your kindness to my possible children?” he added, more cheerfully.

“I was endeavoring,” said I, “on the bare possibility of your retaining as a father all the feelings you seem to entertain at present, to compile for your children (as they must be taught something, and you would wish them, as you say, to know the truth) a short catechism.  I think the questions in Watts’s First Catechism might do for the poor little souls.  The answers (as usual) might not be wholly intelligible till they got older, but still might awaken some notion which in time might ripen into confirmed scepticism.”

“Well,” said he, laughing, “let me hear what sort of ‘religious’ instruction you have provided.”

“I had only finished one question,” I replied, “when you came in:  but I almost think it may be considered a ‘Summa Theologiae’ of itself.  It is this:—­

“‘Can you tell me, child, who made you?’

“’I cannot, certainly, tell who made me; neither can my father; but from the continual misery, confusion, and doubt which I feel in myself and see around me’—­here the little pupil is to be cautioned not to laugh; the mirth in the eye, perhaps, cannot be extinguished,—­I am led to doubt whether I was made by one who cares for me or takes any interest in me.’(Good child.)”

“As I looked up, after reading this first truth of sceptical theology, I observed in Harrington’s face something of the same look of sorrow which I had noted the day before.  Suddenly be said, as if to prevent any chance recurrence to painful topics:—­

“I very gradually became a doubter.  I was perhaps becoming so when, two years ago, I became an idolater, and my idol crumbled to pieces at my feet.  That transient vision of the beautiful half reclaimed me from my doubts; the darkness of the succeeding night taught me juster views of the miseries of man and the incomprehensible riddle of his existence; and I half blushed at my glimpse of selfish happiness.”