There are doubts that traverse the soul like a flash of lightning, burning their way through it; there are others that come slowly, insinuating themselves through a few careless words that somebody said because they had a clever ring. Doubt came to Ian like a mailed warrior, and met him, as _Apollyon_ met _Christian_, with defiant words and straddling all over the way. What if there was no God? he asked boldly--if blind forces, beyond his comprehension, controlled the world? If life was only a semblance and mankind dreamers in it? What if the heavens were empty? If there was no one to answer prayer? If Christ had never risen? If the Word of God was _not_ the Word of God? Such questions are only of casual importance to the material man, but to Ian they were the breath of his nostrils. He lived only to solve them, and to pluck the Very Truth from the assertions and contradictions in which it lay buried. By night and by day he was in the thick of this storm, and was often so weary that he fell into long sleepy stupors. For great griefs and anxieties have these respites from suffering, and it was likely this very lethargy which overtook the Disciples in the sorrowful Garden of Olives. And this spiritual warfare was not a thing to be decided in a few days, or even weeks. Slowly, as the weary months went on, it disintegrated the Higher Life, leaving the man acutely intellectual, but without spiritual hope or comfort. It was mainly by Mrs. Caird's pleadings and reasonings that he had even been kept at his post in the Church of the Disciples. "What do you expect to gain by leaving your work, Ian?" she asked. "If God should send a word to comfort you, it would doubtless come as it came to the good men and prophets of old--when they were on the threshing-floor, or among the flocks, or about their daily duties. You can at least do as Dr. Scott does--keep faithfully your obligation to the Presbytery, and, as a matter of professional honesty, preach good Calvinistic sermons to those who desire them. It might be that while you were helping and encouraging others the Divine Whisper would reach your heart. At any rate, it is more likely to come to you in the stress and duty of life than when you are thinking yourself into a stupor in that haunted study of yours." "Haunted!" "Yes, Ian, haunted by doubts that gather strength by habit--and by fears, that, like the needle, verge to the pole till they tremble and tremble into certainty." And, though Ian had declared that he never could or would preach as a mere professional duty, he found himself obliged to do so. It was necessary to have a reason for his sermons, for without a reason he could neither write nor preach them; and he found in the faithful fulfillment of his ministerial vows the only substitute for that fervent zeal which had once touched his lips as with a live coal from the altar.