Childhood is a trying time when one learns through the pain of gaining experience. Religion is a topic that many adults have trouble grasping, and faith is never something easy won. In Olive Schreiner's, Story of an African Farm, a young boy named Waldo fights to understand the issue of God and death.

In the first chapter of the novel, we see Waldo struggling with the issue of death. Each moment the clock ticks, someone is dying. He lies awake, listening to the ticking of a watch, but he does not here the tick of the watch, " 'Dying, dying dying!' said the watch;". All of Waldo's bad thoughts stem from part of a passage his father had read him earlier. It said, " 'For wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.'" Waldo felt bad for all the people that were dying, that had been dying since he lay down, that would continue dying for eternity. He prayed that some of them would be saved from death, just a few of them. This fear stemmed from not truly understanding the words in the bible that his father had read to him, and from his own misunderstanding of his faith in God.

Again, Waldo challenges his faith and God when he places a sacrifice to God, asking for a sign. He waits and waits for a sign that he is in God's favor, and when nothing happens, he takes it as if God has forsaken him. At first he thinks that God maybe challenging him, but when he waits all day, and nothing happens, he assumes God has rejected him as he rejected Cain. Waldo says, " God cannot lie. I had faith. No fire came. I am like Cain - I am not His. He will not hear my prayer. God hates me." Waldo does not understand why God did not respond to his offering, and with the nativity of a child, takes it as rejection. He sees God as a wish granter, and does not understand that a God does not always show himself in obvious ways. Most of this is because of his lack of experience and knowledge. His need for God is not coming from love or faith, but from fear of dying and what death brings. Later, thinking to himself about a Kaffir, Waldo says, " …perhaps he will die tonight, and go to hell!", and then thinks of himself, " Where am I going to?" and prays for mercy. This shows Waldo's fear of death. He thinks he himself might be going to hell. Waldo says later, " I love Jesus Christ, but I hate God." Waldo hates God, because he takes away life, and Jesus died to give people life. The contrast is black and white to him, and he cannot see all the meanings in between. Schreiner says it best when she says, "The barb in the arrow of childhood's suffering is this - its intense loneliness, its intense ignorance." The reader sees this best through Waldo and his struggle with faith.

Throughout the book, the reader sees Waldo's growth, but the first chapters depicting Waldo's initial battle with faith are the most telling. What would childhood be like without the questions and doubts that innocence creates? Olive Schreiner captures the feelings of loneliness and doubt of childhood's faith.