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No creed or dogma has been taught to Helen, nor has any effort been made to force religious beliefs upon her attention. Being fully aware of my own incompetence to give her any adequate explanations of the mysteries which underlie the names of God, soul and immortality, I have always felt obliged, by a sense of duty to my pupil, to say as little as possible about spiritual matters. The Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks has explained to her in a beautiful way the fatherhood of God. The following extracts from the letters which passed between them will give an adequate idea of the religious instruction which she has received from him.

In a letter to Dr. Brooks, Helen says: --

Why does the great Father in heaven think it is best for us to have very great sorrow and pain sometimes? I am always happy, and so was Little Lord Fauntleroy; but dear little Jakey's life was full of sadness, and God did not put the light in his eyes, and he was blind, and his father was not gentle and loving. Do you think Jakey loved his Father in heaven more because his other father was unkind to him? How did God tell people that his home was in heaven? When people do very wrong and hurt animals and treat children unkindly, God is grieved; but what will he do to them to teach them to be pitiful and loving? Please tell me something that you know about God. I like so much to hear about my loving Father who is so good and wise.

To this appeal Dr. Brooks sent the following reply: --

I want to tell you how glad I am that you are so happy, and enjoying your home so very much. I can almost think I see you with your father and mother and little sister, with all the brightness of the beautiful country about you, and it makes me very glad to know how glad you are.

I am glad also to know, from the questions which you ask me, what you are thinking about. I do not see how we can help thinking about God when he is so good to us all the time. Let me tell you how it seems to me that we come to know about the heavenly Father. It is from the power of love which is in our own hearts. Love is at the soul of everything. Whatever has not the power of loving must have a very dreary life indeed. We like to think that the sunshine and the winds and the trees are able to love in some way of their own, for it would make us know that they were happy if we knew that they could love; and so God, who is the greatest and happiest of all beings, is the most loving, too. All the love that is in our hearts comes from him, as all the light which is in the flowers comes from the sun; and the more we love the more near we are to God and his love.

I told you that I was very happy because of your happiness. Indeed I am! So are your father and your mother and your teacher and all your friends. But do you not think that God is also happy because you are happy? I am sure he is! And he is happier than any of us, because he is greater than any of us, and also because he not merely sees your happiness as we do, but because he has made it. He gives it to you as the sun gives light and color to the rose; and we are always most glad of what we not merely see our friends enjoy, but of what we give them to enjoy, -- are we not?

But God does not only want us to be happy. He wants us to be good. He wants that most of all. He knows that we can be really happy only when we are good. A great deal of the trouble that is in the world is medicine which is very bad to take, but which it is good to take because it makes us better. We see how good people may be in great trouble when we think of Jesus, who was the greatest sufferer that ever lived, and yet was the best Being, and so, I am sure, the happiest Being, that the world has ever seen.

I love to tell you about God, but he will tell you himself by the love which he will put into your heart if you ask him. And Jesus, who is his Son, but is nearer to him than all of us, his other children, came into the world on purpose to tell us all about our Father's love. If you read his words, you will see how full his heart is of the love of God. "We know that he loves us!" Jesus says; and so he loved men himself; and, though they were very cruel to him and at last killed him, he was willing to die for them because he loved them so; and, Helen, he loves men still, and he loves us, and he tells us that we may love him.

And so love is everything; and if anybody asks you, or if you ask yourself what God is, answer, "God is love!" That is the beautiful answer which the Bible gives.

All this is what you are to think of and to understand more and more as you grow older. Think of it now, and let it make every blessing brighter because your dear Father sends it to you.

Later Helen writes: --

It fills my heart with joy to know that God loves me so much that he wishes me to live always, and that he gives me everything that makes me happy, -- loving friends, a precious little sister, sweet flowers, and, best of all, a heart that can love and sympathize and a mind that can think and enjoy. I am thankful to my heavenly Father for giving me all these precious things. But I have many questions to ask you, -- some things that I cannot understand, because I am quite ignorant; but when I am older I shall not be so much puzzled.