Will you bear with me if I recall another and a later scene? The days of childhood were behind us. We had drifted apart. You remained among the old home-scenes; I was making my way among strangers. Then one went from you who had become dearer to you than a mother. I have before me a letter that came to me out of the shadows of that bitter trial; I know you will not misjudge me if I quote its words now. Thus you wrote: "I am sure such a life cannot have ended; the possibilities of it cannot yet be finished. That soul, with all its sweetness and beauty and brightness, cannot have been quenched like a spark on the ocean.... Her last words were, 'I go with Him who has brought life and immortality to light, and who has opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.'" I would not recall these early views and faiths unkindly. If they were wrong, of course you are right in parting with them; but is it certain they were wrong? And in giving them up have you found something better and more sure to take their place? One important point I presume you have not overlooked: whatever doubts there may be as to the existence of God, _atheism can never be proved_. No man can ever be sure that there is _not_ a God; he may deny that the proof of divine existence satisfies _him_, but that is all he can do. Somewhere in the universe, after all, God may be. No man has explored all its recesses; none has pierced its limitless heights; none has threaded all its dark abysses and found that in it all there is no God. A man must himself have the attributes of God to know that there is no God. And suppose I cannot prove that there is a God? If I live as if there were one and it should happen that there is not, I am safe; I lose nothing. But if I live as if there were no God and it should come to pass at last that there is, where am I? Of two untraveled paths, it is wisest to take that which is _known_ to be safe. But suppose it to be a question of probabilities. Suppose you have to choose between an endless succession of finite causes, as a man, an oak, a flower, a dewdrop--not one of which is adequate to its own existence--and one infinite, eternal self-existent, almighty and allwise Cause of all things (and some such choice sooner or later you must make), which is the better? Which is the more reasonable? If you think through these questions at all, either you must at last admit a God or you must make something for yourself that will do the work of God; and the God you make _must do what actually is done now_; what he will do hereafter, who can say? Your friend, Mr. ----, tells you that "all there is is all the God there is"--that "the universe is all there is or was or will be." This is pantheistic atheism; it is a mere assertion without a particle of proof; and if true, it can give us no relief for the future, as I hope to satisfy you.