The next night, with an embarrassment that caused my cheeks to burn like fire, I rose before the scoffers and told them that God had converted me. Again I expected to feel happy. But, naturally, my sorrow only deepened as the abnormal state did not return. For the next two weeks I tried with all my original earnestness to get back my happiness; but without success. One day while in a valley far from any human being, where the woods covered the hill before me, I was looking up into the sky and still pleading with God to restore my happy state of mind. Then the thought occurred to me, "Where is God?" At that time I was so ignorant of the universe that I thought the earth had a ceiling, and that the ceiling of the earth was the floor of heaven. It seemed to be about three rifle shots away. I thought that if one could get through the ceiling of the earth he would be in heaven, and there would be God. As I stood there gazing into the sky my mind said, "Why does God not show Himself?" That He could part the clouds and show His face seemed the most natural and reasonable thing in the world. Why, then, did He not do so? Since He neither blesses me in answer to my prayers, nor shows Himself, possibly He does not exist. My wonderful experience may have been nothing but a highly wrought state of feelings. I then recalled that ministers based their belief in the existence of God on certain arguments. But suddenly this seemed the strangest procedure imaginable. Why had God left us to argue and reason about His existence? Should He not settle so great a question beyond all argument? How strange it would be if my earthly father should stay away from us until we did not know whether he was dead or alive! We had the satisfaction of loving and obeying our father without ever a chance to doubt his existence. If our Heavenly Father would make me equally certain of His existence I should follow Him through flood and fire. "Then why does God not show Himself?" "Isn't it strange that He has hidden forever and forever!" Here I remembered the Scripture which says, "No man can see God and live." But my heart quickly responded, "It is one thing to come near enough to kill us, and quite another to come near enough to convince us. Oh, isn't it strange that He hides forever?" Then I thought of Jesus. But my heart replied, "Maybe Jesus was mistaken." If He had a rapturous feeling like mine, and was able to sustain it, He would continue to believe in God even if He did not exist. Nothing short of God's personal appearance, it seemed to me, could settle the question. "Then why does God not show Himself? There is no sense in hiding; and if no sense in it, then it is wrong; and if wrong, then there is no God. Because God, if He exists, must be good and sensible."