The very thought is a terrible sin." Would he recommend me any books that might throw light on the subject?
"No, no; you have read too much already.

You must pray; you must pray." When I urged that I could not believe without proof, I was told, "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed"; and my further questioning was checked by the murmur, "O my child, how undisciplined! how impatient!" Truly, he must have found in me--hot, eager, passionate in my determination to _know_, resolute not to profess belief while belief was absent--nothing of the meek, chastened, submissive spirit with which he was wont to deal in penitents seeking his counsel as their spiritual guide.

In vain did he bid me pray as though I believed; in vain did he urge the duty of blind submission to the authority of the Church, of blind, unreasoning faith that questioned not.

I had not trodden the thorny path of doubt to come to the point from which I had started; I needed, and would have, solid grounds ere I believed.

He had no conception of the struggles of a sceptical spirit; he had evidently never felt the pangs of doubt; his own faith was solid as a rock, firm, satisfied, unshakable; he would as soon have committed suicide as have doubted of the infallibility of the "Universal Church." "It is not your duty to ascertain the truth," he told me, sternly.