"Scarcely, just now," said his friend. "Study for the ministry; bind your
thoughts to it; pray; ask a belief, and you will soon find you have it.
Doubts may occasionally press in; and it is so with every clergyman. But
your prevailing mood will be faith."

"It has seemed to me," observed Septimius, "that it is not the prevailing
mood, the most common one, that is to be trusted. This is habit,
formality, the shallow covering which we close over what is real, and
seldom suffer to be blown aside. But it is the snake-like doubt that
thrusts out its head, which gives us a glimpse of reality. Surely such
moments are a hundred times as real as the dull, quiet moments of faith or
what you call such."

"I am sorry for you," said the minister; "yet to a youth of your frame of
character, of your ability I will say, and your requisition for something
profound in the grounds of your belief, it is not unusual to meet this
trouble. Men like you have to fight for their faith. They fight in the
first place to win it, and ever afterwards to hold it. The Devil tilts
with them daily and often seems to win."

"Yes; but," replied Septimius, "he takes deadly weapons now. If he meet me
with the cold pure steel of a spiritual argument, I might win or lose, and
still not feel that all was lost; but he takes, as it were, a great clod
of earth, massive rocks and mud, soil and dirt, and flings it at me
overwhelmingly; so that I am buried under it."

"How is that?" said the minister. "Tell me more plainly."

"May it not be possible," asked Septimius, "to have too profound a sense of