这么多事情正在测试他的信仰。当然有圣经，但是圣经是一本书，荒凉的房子，金银岛，伊桑·弗罗姆和莫希干的最后一本书也是如此。那时，正如他曾经听到的邓巴所问的那样，这似乎有可能，人们对创造的谜语的答案会被太无知的人提供以至于理解降雨的机制吗？全能的上帝在他的无限智慧中是否真的很担心六千年前的人会成功地建造一座塔式天堂？
(So many things were testing his faith. There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible was a book, and so were Bleak House, Treasure Island, Ethan Frome and The Last of the Mohicans. Did it then seem probable, as he had once overheard Dunbar ask, that the answers to riddles of creation would be supplied by people too ignorant to understand the mechanics of rainfall? Had Almighty God, in all His infinite wisdom, really been afraid that men six thousand years ago would succeed in building a tower to heaven?)