mine the logical conclusion? What, then, was the use of praying?... My
supplications ceased abruptly. And my ever ready imagination, stirred to
its depths, beheld that awful scene of the last day: the darkness, such
as sometimes creeps over the city in winter, when the jaundiced smoke
falls down and we read at noonday by gas-light. I beheld the tortured
faces of the wicked gathered on the one side, and my mother on the other
amongst the blessed, gazing across the gulf at me with yearning and
compassion. Strange that it did not strike me that the sight of the
condemned whom they had loved in life would have marred if not destroyed
the happiness of the chosen, about to receive their crowns and harps!
What a theology--that made the Creator and Preserver of all mankind thus
illogical!




III.

Although I was imaginative, I was not morbidly introspective, and by the
end of the first day of my incarceration my interest in that solution had
waned. At times, however, I actually yearned for someone in whom I could
confide, who could suggest a solution. I repeat, I would not for worlds
have asked my father or my mother or Dr. Pound, of whom I had a wholesome
fear, or perhaps an unwholesome one. Except at morning Bible reading and
at church my parents never mentioned the name of the Deity, save to
instruct me formally. Intended or no, the effect of my religious training
was to make me ashamed of discussing spiritual matters, and naturally I
failed to perceive that this was because it laid its emphasis on personal
salvation.... I did not, however, become an unbeliever, for I was not of
a nature to contemplate with equanimity a godless universe....