baby? '--yes, and are not satisfied until they have the assurance. And
babies, too, will get up suddenly from their toys to run to say,
'Mother, I _do_ love you.'

"Why is it? Why is love so doubted that it must for ever be declared?
So doubted that even those who do love must constantly be proclaiming
the fact to the object of their affections, impelled either by the
subconscious fear that that object mistrusts the devotion, or by the
subconscious fear that they themselves are under delusion and must
protest aloud--just as a child upon the brink of being frightened in
the dark will say aloud, 'I'm not afraid!' Why is it?

"Actions are allowed to proclaim hate, deeds suffice to advertise
sympathy, but love must be testified by bond. To what crimes must love
have been twisted and contorted that it should come to such a pass?
How often must it have been used as disguise to be now thus suspected?

"You never knew I thought of things like this, did you?

"My dear dear, I who am so frivolous think of yet deeper things. And I
would speak of them to you tonight, for I would have you know my heart
and mind as, dearest (how dear to think!), you know my face. Yes, of
deeper things. I suppose clever people would laugh at the religion my
mother and father lived in, taught me, died in, and now is mine. They
believed--and I believe--in what I have heard called the Sunday School
God! the God who lives, who listens, and to whom I pray. I have read
books attempting to shatter this belief--yes, and I think succeeding
because written with a cunning appeal only to the intelligence of man.
Can such a Being as God exist? they ask. And since man's intelligence
can only grasp proved facts, proofs are heaped upon proof that He