174 I GO A -FISHING. 



Dig down and you will find no dust of humanity there. 

 You will doubt whether it ever was there ; I will still be- 

 lieve it was. I think the dust that was once fair human- 

 ity, blue eyes and ruddy cheeks, white breasts and rosy 

 fingers, has grown up in flowers and leaves of trees, and 

 has gone wandering on the winds of heaven ; and I be- 

 lieve I want none of your reasoning I believe because 

 the book of my faith tells me so, that that dust once held 

 enshrined an immortal soul, that now lives and will live 

 when there will be no more sun and sea. And I believe 

 too that the day will come when God, sitting on his white 

 throne, will call that wandering dust from distant hills and 

 valleys, gathering dust to dust again, and that the young 

 girt will stand up fair and beautiful by the stream, and 

 pass to the place appointed for her. And this I believe, 

 just as I believe from the words on the head-stone that she 

 was buried there after eighteen years of life in the old 

 times, when Jonathan Trumbull was Governor of Connec- 

 ticut. That is faith. You need not argue about it. I 

 take it on faith, and am content. More content, I ven- 

 ture to say, than you are with any results of your reason- 

 ing. Nay, you have no results. Reason only leads you 

 to the point that all is doubtful. You can be sure of 

 nothing, except by taking something as true on blind faith. 



But for that faith what sad and solemn memories would 

 those be, which are now bright and cheerful, of the be- 

 loved ones who rest in peace. 



In the years that are gone many times I have fished 

 that stream and other streams in company with two 

 brothers and a sister, in whose holy memory I have writ- 

 ten every word of this book. There is nothing left of 

 them here but memory. It is very beautiful. They rest 

 in peace. That is the word ! 



