impossibility of proving the existence of a God, and I began to verify those
arguments and to refute them. Cause, said I to myself, is not a category of
thought such as are Time and Space. If I exist, there must be some cause for
it, and a cause of causes. And that first cause of all is what men have called
"God". And I paused on that thought, and tried with all my being to
recognize the presence of that cause. And as soon as I acknowledged that
there is a force in whose power I am, I at once felt that I could live. But I
asked myself: What is that cause, that force? How am I to think of it? What
are my relations to that which I call "God"? And only the familiar replies
occurred to me: "He is the Creator and Preserver." This reply did not satisfy
me, and I felt I was losing within me what I needed for my life. I became
terrified and began to pray to Him whom I sought, that He should help me.
But the more I prayed the more apparent it became to me that He did not
hear me, and that there was no one to whom to address myself. And with
despair in my heart that there is no God at all, I said: "Lord, have mercy,
save me! Lord, teach me!" But no one had mercy on me, and I felt that my
life was coming to a standstill.
But again and again, from various sides, I returned to the same conclusion
that I could not have come into the world without any cause or reason or
meaning; I could not be such a fledgling fallen from its nest as I felt myself
to be. Or, granting that I be such, lying on my back crying in the high grass,
even then I cry because I know that a mother has borne me within her, has
hatched me, warmed me, fed me, and loved me. Where is she -- that
mother? If I have been deserted, who has deserted me? I cannot hide from
myself that someone bored me, loving me. Who was that someone? Again
"God"? He knows and sees my searching, my despair, and my struggle."
"He exists," said I to myself. And I had only for an instant to admit that,
and at once life rose within me, and I felt the possibility and joy of being.
But again, from the admission of the existence of a God I went on to seek
my relation with Him; and again I imagined that God -- our Creator in
Three Persons who sent His Son, the Saviour -- and again that God,
detached from the world and from me, melted like a block of ice, melted
before my eyes, and again nothing remained, and again the spring of life
dried up within me, and I despaired and felt that I had nothing to do but to