error and the loss of my hope of finding in their faith the explanation of the meaning of life.
It was not that in the exposition of their doctrine they mixed in with the Christian truths, which had always been near to me, many unnecessary and irrational things,—it was not that which repelled me; what repelled me was that the lives of these people were precisely what my own life was, with this difference only, that theirs did not correspond to those principles which they expounded in their doctrines. I saw clearly that they were deceiving themselves, and that, like myself, they had no other, meaning of life than to live so long as life was possible, and to take everything that the hand could hold. I saw that because, if they possessed that meaning by which the terror of privations, suffering, and death is abolished, they would not be afraid of them. But they, the believers of our circle, just like myself, lived in plenty and abundance, tried to increase and preserve their possessions, were afraid of privations, suffering, and death, and, like myself and all of us unbelievers, lived gratifying their desires, and lived just as badly, if not worse, than the unbelievers.
No reflections could convince me of the truthfulness of their faith. Only such actions as would have shown me that they had such a meaning of life that poverty, sickness, death, so terrible to me, were not terrible to them, could have convinced me. But such actions I did not perceive among these varied believers of our circle. On the contrary, I saw such actions among the people of our circle who were the greatest unbelievers, but never among the so-called believers.
I saw that the faith of these men was not the faith I was in search of, and that their faith was not a faith, but one of the Epicurean solaces of life. I saw that this faith was, perhaps, good enough, if not as a consolation, as a certain distraction for a repentant Solomon on his
