“Oh, I do! you know I do, Sophie, and all the sin and suffering I see on earth does not in the least shake my faith in God—but—” “But you have little or no faith in your fellow creatures; cultivate that little then, Hagar. Oh! trust, and its opposite, mistrust, how powerful they are; the one for evil, the other for good. Trust! why, Hagar, it is the moral philosopher’s stone, that transmutes, not base metals to gold, but better, evil to good. Believe me; I think, Hagar, the story of the philosopher’s stone was an allegory, and meant this same faith. Why faith will convert the unfaithful by the very appeal it makes to their better nature. Faith plunges straight through all that is ill in a heart, and seizes on that which is good, though half smothered in sin, brings it out into life and action, cherishes it until it is strong and able to struggle with and perhaps to overcome the evil. Why, Hagar, just take a case: suppose a person whose interests are jostled with yours in the conflict of this world becomes your opponent, seems your enemy, gives you a great deal of trouble, perhaps works you much woe in one way or another, yet have faith in _him_, believe that _his_ heart is not _all_ selfishness, nor treat it as though it were; believe that in that soul watches a _conscience_ that speaks for you, if it could be heard; in that heart a _human sympathy_ that still suffers for you, if it could be felt; a spark of divine and human love, in a word, that, however covered up and crusted over by sin and selfishness, still lives, may still be nursed into a healthful and regenerating flame by your love. Have faith in the human feeling, even of the selfish. Believe that somewhere down in the deeps of their souls, buried though it be, there lives some good that _your_ goodness might elicit; some love that _your_ love might arouse; some faith that _your_ faith might sustain; some conscience that your forbearance or forgiveness may awaken. And on the other hand, Hagar, mistrust of good, doubt of good, how fraught with evil it is; doubt chains the sinner to his sin, keeps the weak man on his couch of weakness. Trust is health, life; mistrust is illness, death.” “But, aunt, if you had been robbed by a person, for instance, would you trust that person with your purse?” “I do not mean superficial trust,” said Sophie; “no, perhaps I would not leave my purse in the way of a proved thief, unless I had some guarantee of his reformation; but I would have _trust_ in _his capabilities for reformation_, and I would run some risk of loss, if necessary, in advancing his reformation.” They were silent some time. Then Hagar said— “But you are mistaken, Sophie, if you think that I doubt or mistrust Raymond; it is not exactly that, it is a vague, undefined fear—dread.”