Eliminating God in Daisy Miller, Huckleberry Finn, and The Land of Pointed PinesThe evils of the Civil War and the rise of empiricism brought many people to doubt an omniscient and all-powerful God. Under empiricism, any statements regarding metaphysical entities (e.g. God, unicorns, love and beauty) would be meaningless terms because they cannot be proven by the scientific method. But with a loss of faith in God, what happens to morality? This essay will examine how Emily Dickinson, Sarah Orne Jewett, Henry James, and Mark Twain wrote literature in a time marked by war, inhumanity, and despair in God. This essay will show that: (1) Dickinson destroys all confidence in the Bible and all possibility of knowing God, but argues that we should instead praise Nature, which is tangible; (2) Jewett eliminates the omniscient narrator (or God-like figure) in The Land of Pepper Fir, and instead makes readers see life as having value only through human experiences and reveals the comforts of nature; (3) Henry James eliminates God in Daisy Miller by removing the omniscient narrator and leading readers to play God, being Daisy and Winterbourne's judge; (4) Mark Twain uses Huckleberry Finn to question any trust in God, mocking prayer and church revivals, and instead encouraging one to seek morality in one's conscience. Emily Dickinson learned verse by studying her church hymn. But rather than praising a God who “hid his rare life” (338), she turned to praising Nature, tangible and empirical. Dickinson seemed to believe in a God: "I know He exists", but this belief was greatly hindered by the existence of evil (primarily the atrocities caused by the Civil War), in which she wrote that Her right hand "is amputated now/And God cannot be found” (1551). This statement may not be as harsh as Nietzche's "God is dead," but one can probably imagine that Dickinson wrote these words in tears. Because she believed that God could not be found, she attacked the Bible's ability to convey notions of God: "The Bible is an ancient volume –/Written by faded men" (1545). Dickinson found more company in her trusty dictionary (which helped define words) than in a Bible (which was to define life). For Dickinson, nature was supreme; Nature was tangible; Nature was real. Dickinson needed empirical evidence and Nature provided it: “‘Nature’ is what we see.”/ .