throng so countless as to have been summoned and controlled by the
deep arraigning eye of Dante alone. Unawares, he stood at the head
of an invisible host, which stretched backward through time till it
could be traced no farther. Witnesses all to that sublime,
indispensable part of man which is his Doubt--Doubt respecting his
origin, his meaning, his Maker, and his destiny. That perpetual
half-night of his planet-mind--that shadowed side of his orbit-
life--forever attracted and held in place by the force of Deity,
but destined never to receive its light. Yet from that chill, bleak
side what things have not reached round and caught the sun! And as
of the earth's plants, some grow best and are sweetest in darkness,
what strange blossoms of faith open and are fragrant in that
eternal umbra! Sacred, sacred Doubt of Man. His agony, his
searching! which has led him always onward from more ignorance to
less ignorance, from less truth to more truth; which is the
inspiration of his mind, the sorrow of his heart; which has spoken
everywhere in his science, philosophy, literature, art--in his
religion itself; which keeps him humble not vain, changing not
immutable, charitable not bigoted; which attempts to solve the
universe and knows that it does not solve it, but ever seeks to
trace law, to clarify reason, and so to find whatever truth it can.

As David sat before his professors and his pastor, it was one of
the moments that sum up civilization.

Across the room, behind them also, what a throng! Over on that side
was Faith, that radiant part of the soul which directly basks in
the light of God, the sun. There, visible to the eye of
imagination, were those of all times, places, and races, who have
sat in judgment on doubters, actual or suspected. In whatsoever