"It is small comfort to anticipate a time of blessedness for future
generations. What benefit is steam or telegraph to the moldering
mummies of the catacombs? I want to know what good the millennium
will do you and me when our dust is mingled with mother earth, in
some silent necropolis?"
"Oh, Beulah, what ails you to-day? You look so gloomy and wretched.
It seems to me you have changed sadly of late. I knew that a life of
labor such as you voluntarily assumed would chasten your spirit, but
I did not expect this utter revolution of your natura so soon. Oh,
have done with skepticism!"
"Faith in creeds is not to be put on and laid aside at will, like a
garment. Granted that these same doctrines of Zoroaster are faint
adumbrations of the Hebrew creed, the Gordian knot is by no means
loosed. That prologue in 'Faust' horrified you yesterday; yet, upon
my word, I don't see why; for very evidently it is taken from Job,
and Faust is but an ideal Job, tempted in more subtle manner than by
the loss of flocks, houses, and children. You believe that Satan was
allowed to do his utmost to ruin Job, and Mephistopheles certainly
set out on the same fiendish mission. Mephistopheles is not the
defiant demon of Milton, but a powerful prince in the service of
God. You need not shudder; I am giving no partial account; I merely
repeat the opinion of many on this subject. It is all the same to
me. Evil exists: that is the grim fact. As to its origin--I would
about as soon set off to search for the city Asgard."
"Still, I would not give my faith for all your learning and
philosophy. See what it has brought you to," answered Clara
sorrowfully.
"Your faith! what does it teach you of this evil principle?"
retorted Beulah impatiently.
"At least more than all speculation has taught you. You admit that
of its origin you know nothing; the Bible tells me that time was
when earth was sinless, and man holy, and that death and sin entered
the world by man's transgression--"
"Which I don't believe," interrupted Beulah.
"So you might sit there and stop your ears and close your eyes and
assert that this was a sunny, serene day. Your reception or
rejection of the Biblical record by no means affects its
authenticity. My faith teaches that the evil you so bitterly
deprecate is not eternal; shall finally be crushed, and the harmony
you crave pervade all realms. Why an All-wise and All-powerful God
suffers evil to exist is not for his finite creatures to determine.
It is one of many mysteries which it is as utterly useless to bother
over as to weave ropes of sand."