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thing for Mr. Raeburn to consider, I own. Still, you can't
demonstrate to me that his love is a reality.
But I KNOW it is! cried Erica, vehemently.
Of course you know, my child; you know in your heart, and our
hearts can teach us what no power of intellect, no skill in logic
can every teach us. You can't logically prove the existence of
your father's love, and I can't logically prove the existence of
the allFather; but in our hearts we both of us know. The deepest,
most sacred realities are generally those of heartknowledge, and
quite out of the pale of logic.
Erica did not speak, but sat musing. After all, what COULD be
proved with absolute certainty? Why, nothing, except such bare
facts as that two and two make four. Was even mathematical proof
so absolutely certain? Were they not already beginning to talk of
a possible fourth dimension of space when even that might no longer
be capable of demonstration.
Well, setting aside actual proof, she resumed, after a silence,
how do you bring it down even to a probability that God is?
We must all of us start with a supposition, said Charles Osmond.
There must on the one hand either be everlasting matter or
everlasting force, whether these be two real existences, or whether
matter be only force conditioned, or, on the other hand, you have
the alternative of the everlasting 'He.' You at present base your
belief on the first alternative. I base mine on the last, which,
I grant you, is at the outset the most difficult of the two. I
find, however, that nine times out of ten the most difficult theory
is the truest. Granting the everlasting 'He,' you must allow self
consciousness, without which there could be no all powerful, all
knowledgefull, and all lovefull. We will not quarrel about
names; call the Everlasting what you please. 'Father' seems to me
at once the highest and simplest name.
But evil! broke in Erica, triumphantly. If He originates all,
he must originate evil as well as good.
Certainly, said Charles Osmond, He has expressly told us so. 'I
form the light and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil;
I, the Lord, do all these things.'
I recollect now, we spoke of this two or three years ago, said
Erica. You said that the highest good was attained by passing
through struggles and temptations.
Think of it in this way, said Charles Osmond. The Father is
educating His children; what education was ever brought about
without pain? The wise human father does not so much shield his
child from small pains, but encourages him to get wisdom from them
for the future, tries to teach him endurance and courage. Pain is

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