Ch. 7 - Through the Mist

THE year that followed was the saddest Christie had ever known,
for she suffered a sort of poverty which is more difficult to bear
than actual want, since money cannot lighten it, and the rarest
charity alone can minister to it. Her heart was empty and she could
not fill it; her soul was hungry and she could not feed it; life was
cold and dark and she could not warm and brighten it, for she knew
not where to go.

She tried to help herself by all the means in her power, and when
effort after effort failed she said: "I am not good enough yet to
deserve happiness. I think too much of human love, too little of
divine. When I have made God my friend perhaps He will let me find
and keep one heart to make life happy with. How shall I know God?
Who will tell me where to find Him, and help me to love and lean
upon Him as I ought?"

In all sincerity she asked these questions, in all sincerity she
began her search, and with pathetic patience waited for an answer.
She read many books, some wise, some vague, some full of
superstition, all unsatisfactory to one who wanted a living God. She
went to many churches, studied many creeds, and watched their fruits
as well as she could; but still remained unsatisfied. Some were cold
and narrow, some seemed theatrical and superficial, some stern and
terrible, none simple, sweet, and strong enough for humanity's many
needs. There was too much machinery, too many walls, laws, and
penalties between the Father and His children. Too much fear, too
little love; too many saints and intercessors; too little faith in
the instincts of the soul which turns to God as flowers to the sun.
Too much idle strife about names and creeds; too little knowledge of
the natural religion which has no name but godliness, whose creed is
boundless and benignant as the sunshine, whose faith is as the
tender trust of little children in their mother's love.

Nowhere did Christie find this all-sustaining power, this paternal
friend, and comforter, and after months of patient searching she
gave up her quest, saying, despondently:

"I'm afraid I never shall get religion, for all that's offered me
seems so poor, so narrow, or so hard that I cannot take it for my
stay. A God of wrath I cannot love; a God that must be propitiated,
adorned, and adored like an idol I cannot respect; and a God who can
be blinded to men's iniquities through the week by a little beating
of the breast and bowing down on the seventh day, I cannot serve. I
want a Father to whom I can go with all my sins and sorrows, all my
hopes and joys, as freely and fearlessly as I used to go to my human
father, sure of help and sympathy and love. Shall I ever find Him?"

Alas, poor Christie! she was going