If there really was a God, would they kindly tell me how to find Him?

Pray! pray!

I prayed, often and ardently, but ever came that heart-stilling whisper
that there was nothing to pray to.

Ah, the bitter, hopeless heart-hunger of godlessness none but an atheist
can understand! Nothing to live for in life--no hope beyond the grave. It
plunged me into fits of profound melancholy.

Had my father occupied one of the fat positions of the land, no doubt as
his daughter my life would have been so full of pleasant occupation and
pleasure that I would not have developed the spirit which torments me
now. Or had I a friend--one who knew, who had suffered and understood, one
in whom I could lose myself, one on whom I could lean--I might have grown
a nicer character. But in all the wide world there was not a soul to hold
out a hand to me, and I said bitterly, "There is no good in the world."
In softer moods I said, "Ah, the tangle of it! Those who have the heart
to help have not the power, and those who have the power have not the
heart."

Bad, like a too-strong opponent in a game of chess, is ever at the elbow
of good to checkmate it like a weakly managed king.

I am sadly lacking in self-reliance. I needed some one to help me over
the rough spots in life, and finding them not, at the age of sixteen I
was as rank a cynic and infidel as could be found in three days' march.