‘_Wednesday, August 9._ Awake at 4 A.M. Not up to breakfast. Decided must write [my resignation]. All is dark. “Such clouds of nameless sorrow cross, All night before my darkened eyes.” The light has gone out of the heavens. Why [does] God leave us without one word, His children orphans? Can He have left us to delusions? Tears are my meat day and night. I cannot live an untrue life. If Jesus be what I once believed Him, He would not wish it. “Every one that is of the truth heareth My Voice.” Tried to pray harder. Woke [as] in a dreary pine forest with beautiful ferns. Felt there must be a presence behind them. Then the trouble revived once more. ‘_Thursday, August 10._ Wrote my resignation. May my children never know this sorrow. Christian teaching spiritualised, as I have seen it, is the holiest and purest. Their souls need not be orphaned as mine. [I] cannot stay [with them]. I could not play the hypocrite, I should hate myself. Without Christ, I should not be what I was. If I could attempt to go on, which I could not for a moment contemplate since it is untrue, think if I were found out, the moral blow for my children. They would think I had been false when teaching them my deepest faith,—the joy of my life,—that which made all the suffering bearable, and all gladness double, the love of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I would suffer the loss of all things if I might win Christ and be found in Him. ‘O Lord, Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived.’ The immediate sequel to the story of these few days was told in a letter to a friend:— ‘_August 1882._ ‘I was engaged to attend a religious conference at the end of a week. I did not quite like to give it up, for there might _possibly_ be some hope of help, though I felt there was none. My friends begged me to go,—there was just a chance. I went,—but almost turned back after I had started, for I was so broken down I could not restrain my tears, and I was ashamed to be seen. Well, I met there [some] men of powerful mind, leaders of thought in their different departments, who had gone through periods of darkness, but had waited for the dawn, and now they believed.... After two days I told my grief to a sympathising friend, who was surprised at my wretchedness, and her calm faith gave me a little calmness too. So the day before we were to leave I ventured to tell all my trouble to the clergyman who had invited me. I think I may dare to say that my faith has come back—not as it was before, but more spiritual; once more I can say the Creed, and I think I shall be able to teach again....’