"I am getting old--and--and--we all have our troubles, and, I trust, our God also, to set them right for us," he added, with a suggesting look in the face of the doctor.
"By Jove!" said Faber to himself, "the spring weather has roused the worshiping instinct! The clergy are awake to-day! I had better look out, or it will soon be too hot for me." "I can't look you in the face, doctor," resumed the old man after a pause, "and believe what people say of you.

It can't be that you don't even believe there _is_ a God ?" Faber would rather have said nothing; but his integrity he must keep fast hold of, or perish in his own esteem.
"If there be one," he replied, "I only state a fact when I say He has never given me ground sufficient to think so.

You say yourselves He has favorites to whom He reveals Himself: I am not one of them, and must therefore of necessity be an unbeliever." "But think, Mr.Faber--if there should be a God, what an insult it is to deny Him existence." "I can't see it," returned the surgeon, suppressing a laugh.

"If there be such a one, would He not have me speak the truth?
Anyhow, what great matter can it be to Him that one should say he has never seen Him, and can't therefore believe He is to be seen?
A god should be above that sort of pride." The minister was too much shocked to find any answer beyond a sad reproving shake of the head.

But he felt almost as if the hearing of such irreverence without withering retort, made him a party to the sin against the Holy Ghost.