' As the singers
kept on repeating the question, I kept on saying sorrowfully to
myself--'Ah, where, where, where?' and when the triumphant answer came,
'The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is
understanding,' I shrunk ashamed into myself for not having foreseen it.
In later life, when I have tried to use this answer as a light by which I
could walk, I found it served but to the raising of another question,
'What is the fear of the Lord, and what is evil in this particular case?'
And my easy method with spiritual dilemmas proved to be but a case of
_ignotum per ignotius_.
"If Satan himself is at times transformed into an angel of light, are not
angels of light sometimes transformed into the likeness of Satan? If the
devil is not so black as he is painted, is God always so white? And is
there not another place in which it is said, 'The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom,' as though it were not the last word upon the
subject? If a man should not do evil that good may come, so neither
should he do good that evil may come; and though it were good for me to
speak out, should I not do better by refraining?
"Such were the lawless and uncertain thoughts that tortured me very
cruelly, so that I did what I had not done for many a long year--I prayed
for guidance.
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