those days of "hard living", I can now look on them without regret. More,
I am glad to have passed through them, for they have taught me how to
sympathise with those who are struggling as I struggled then, and I never
can hear the words fall from pale lips: "I am hungry", without
remembering how painful a thing hunger is, and without curing that pain,
at least for the moment.

But I turn from this to the brighter side of my life, the intellectual
and social side, where I found a delight unknown in the old days of
bondage. First, there was the joy of freedom, the joy of speaking out
frankly and honestly each thought. Truly, I had the right to say: "With a
great price obtained I this freedom," and having paid the price, I
revelled in the Liberty I had bought. Mr. Scott's valuable library was at
my service; his keen brain challenged my opinions, probed my assertions,
and suggested phases of thought hitherto untouched. I studied harder than
ever, and the study now was unchecked by any fear of possible
consequences. I had nothing left of the old faith save belief in "a God",
and that began slowly to melt away. The Theistic axiom: "If there be a
God at all he must be at least as good as his highest creature", began
with an "if", and to that "if" I turned my attention. "Of all impossible
things", writes Miss Frances Power Cobbe, "the most impossible must
surely be that a man should dream something of the good and the noble,
and that it should prove at last that his Creator was less good and less
noble than he had dreamed." But, I questioned, are we sure that there is
a Creator? Granted that, if there is, he must be above his highest
creature, but--is there such a being? "The ground", says the Rev. Charles
Voysey, "on which our belief in God rests is man. Man, parent of Bibles
and Churches, inspirer of all good thoughts and good deeds. Man, the
master-piece of God's thought on earth. Man, the text-book of all
spiritual knowledge. Neither miraculous nor infallible, man is