The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis tells of two children helping a prince escape a dark witch’s underground kingdom. It includes my favorite Lewis character, Puddleglum, a gloomy marsh creature.

Despite Puddleglum’s ongoing pessimism, he’s the one who stays the course, an encourager. He rallies the children when they are caught, forever it seems, in the underground kingdom, wondering if an outside world really does exist.

The witch taunts the children. She says this outside world is only make believe.

Puddleglum answers: “Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun . . . Suppose the black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. … four babies playing a game can make a play-world that licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play world.”

I don’t think the scene is telling us to forgo our reason. It does mean, to me, that faith—in the superiority of goodness over badness, of love over hatred, of mercy over revenge—is worth holding on to. We still grieve over horrible tragedies, and doubts are a part of any pilgrim’s life. But we hold on to and practice the good things, out of season as well as in.

We get no credit for faith in goodness when times are going well. We demonstrate our real character when we hang on to the good things when the times are out of kilter.