But so happy was my position, that I needed not to hurry: no practical duty forced me to rapid decision, and a suspense of judgment was not an unwholesome exercise.

Meanwhile, I sometimes thought Christianity to be to me, like the great river Ganges to a Hindoo.

Of its value he has daily experience: he has piously believed that its sources are in heaven, but of late the report has come to him, that it only flows from very high mountains of this earth.

What is he to believe?
He knows not exactly: he cares not much: in any case the river is the gift of God to him: its positive benefits cannot be affected by a theory concerning its source.
Such a comparison undoubtedly implies that he who uses it discerns for himself a moral excellence in Christianity, and _submits to it only so far as this discernment commands_.

I had practically reached this point, long before I concluded my theoretical inquiries as to Christianity itself: but in the course of this fifth period numerous other overpowering considerations crowded upon me which I must proceed to state in outline.
* * * * * All pious Christians feel, and all the New Testament proclaims, that Faith is a moral act and a test of the moral and spiritual that is within us; so that he who is without faith, (faithless, unfaithful, "infidel,") is morally wanting and is cut off from God.