84 GEOEGE JOHN EOMANES 1878 



There are many who abandon belief for various 

 reasons, and who in various methods stifle regret and 

 call in stoicism to their aid. There are those who 

 really care very little about the ' ultimate problems,' 

 and who find the world of sense quite enough to 

 occupy them. And there are souls who seem to be con- 

 stantly crying out in their darkness for light, the bur- 

 den of whose cry seems to be : ^Fecisti nosad te,Doviine, 

 et inquietum est cor nostrum donee requiescat in te.^ 

 Theselasthave within them the capacity forhohness, 

 the capacity for a real and tremendous power to witness 

 for the truth, to do and to suffer pro causa Dei. To 

 this class George Eomanes belonged. By nature he was 

 deeply and truly religious, and interested and absorbed 

 as he was in science, it is no exaggeration to say he was 

 just as keenly interested in theology, that is to say, 

 in the deepest and ultimate problems of theology. 

 By the questions which divide Christians he was not 

 greatly attracted, and he never could see any reason 

 for the bitterness which exists between e.g. Roman 

 and Anglican. 



This is anticipating. In 1878 he had touched the 

 very depths of scepticism, and he would have rejected 

 the idea of a possibility of return, and would have 

 rejected it in terms of unmeasured regret. 



A letter from Mr. Dar'\\dn is interesting. 



once was mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as now I find it, at 

 such times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of 

 which my nature is susceptible. For whether it be due to my intelligence 

 not being sufficiently advanced to meet the requirements of the age, or 

 whether it be due to the memory of those sacred associations which to 

 me at least were the sweetest that hfe has given, I cannot but feel that 

 for me, and for others who think as I do, there is a dreadful truth in those 

 words of Hamilton, philosophy having become a meditation not merely 

 of death but of annihilation, the precept hnow thyself has become trans- 

 formed into the terrific oracle to CEdipus — 



' Mayest thou ne'er know the truth of what thou art.' 



