_I_ upon the deck of my ship. And so lying with the stone under his
head, he saw a ladder in his sleep between him and heaven, and angels
going up and down. That was a sight which came to the very point of his
necessities. He saw that there was a way between him and God, and that
there were those above who did care for him, and who could come to him
to help him.

"Well, so the next morning he got up, and set up the stone to mark the
place; and it says Jacob vowed a vow, saying, 'If God will be with me,
and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat
and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in
peace, _then_ shall the Lord be my God.' Now _there_ was something that
looked to me like a tangible foundation to begin upon.

"If I understand Dr. H., I believe he would have called that all
selfishness. At first sight it does look a little so; but then I
thought of it in this way: 'Here he was all alone. God was entirely
invisible to him; and how could he feel certain that He really existed,
unless he could come into some kind of connection with Him? the point
that he wanted to be sure of, more than merely to know that there was a
God who made the world;--he wanted to know whether He cared anything
about men, and would do anything to help them. And so, in fact, it was
saying, "If there is a God who interests Himself at all in me, and will
be my Friend and Protector, I will obey Him, so far as I can find out
His will."'

"I thought to myself, 'This is the great experiment, and I will try
it.' I made in my heart exactly the same resolution, and just quietly
resolved to assume for a while as a fact that there _was_ such a God,
and, whenever I came to a place where I could not help myself, just to