HOPING that the journey of some fellow-traveler may be brightened and encouraged by this sunshine, I send this testimony to our periodicals.
Human existence seems to have ushered very many of us into a stormy experience. From the time when, as a little child, I stood over the newly made grave of both father and mother, life seemed like a great battle with sin, sickness, death, loneliness, and doubt. In later years, the struggle between puritanical and more progressive elements in an orthodox church, made me question the creed of that church, and vainly I searched everywhere for Truth. The old religions of the world could not satisfy present-day thought, and none of the denominational creeds of our own time and churches satisfied the heart. Ethics and material theories failed to answer the questions: What and where is God? Who am I, and whither am I tending? From the evidence of the senses all ended in darkness and death. The mountains, woods, and fields preached their sermons of charity, strength, and harmony, and in them was a suggestion of God, which brought my only sense of hope and peace, but even upon these one could place no reliance, for there were also the tempest and lightning, the poisonous and cruel elements of nature. Besides the religious there were the physical struggles from which I could not remember ever having been entirely free, and though I hoped and expected to be well some day, the years brought only disappointment.
Kind and skilful physicians did all they could, but physicians could not discern or remove the cause. Life often seemed not worth the living, but live one must, and so the struggle continued, though I felt that I was drifting out on an unknown sea in an unsafe boat—whither would it bear me?
