Short Stories About Faith: 10 Classics Explained
Quick answer: Ten classic short stories about faith and doubt, from The Student and Where Love Is, God Is to Young Goodman Brown and The Spider's Thread, summarised and compared.
Stories about faith are read by believers who want their faith tested and by doubters who want to see what they are missing. The writers here do not argue theology; they put a cobbler at a window, a bishop in a boat, a sinner on a thread, and watch.
The collection begins with Chekhov's seminary student on Good Friday, moves through Tolstoy's parables, and ends with three men who came back from the edge with news nobody wanted. Each title links to a page that summarises the story and explains its ending.
The stories
The Student by Anton Chekhov. A seminary student walking home cold and hungry on Good Friday stops at a widow's fire and tells the two women there about Peter warming himself by another fire on the night of the denial. The older woman begins to cry, and he walks on changed.
Where Love Is, God Is by Leo Tolstoy. Martin the cobbler, who has lost his wife and son, hears a voice in the night promising a visit and spends the next day watching the street from his basement window. Three people pass whom he helps, and none of them is who he expected.
What Men Live By by Leo Tolstoy. A shoemaker brings home a naked stranger he finds by a shrine, and the stranger, who does not speak of himself, becomes the finest bootmaker in the district. He smiles three times in six years, and at the end explains each.
The Three Hermits by Leo Tolstoy. A bishop sailing to a monastery hears of three old hermits on an island who pray only a few clumsy words, and goes ashore to teach them the Lord's Prayer properly. That night a light comes across the water after the ship.
Three Questions by Leo Tolstoy. A king wants to know the right time for every action, the right people to listen to, and the most important thing to do, and goes disguised to a hermit for the answers. He spends the day digging the old man's garden.
Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne. A young Puritan leaves his wife Faith at sunset for an errand in the forest, and meets a traveller with a serpent staff who knows his family. At a clearing he sees who else has come, and a pink ribbon falls from the sky.
The Spider's Thread by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. The Buddha, walking by a lotus pond in Paradise, sees a robber in Hell who once spared a spider, and lowers a spider's thread to him. Kandata climbs, then looks down and sees the others climbing after him.
Deliverance by Premchand. Dukhi the tanner brings grass and a bundle for the Brahmin and asks him to fix a date for his daughter's betrothal, and is set to sweep, carry husks and split a knotted log. When it is over the priest has a problem that needs a rope.
Lazarus by Leonid Andreyev. Lazarus comes back from the tomb changed, and everyone who meets his eyes loses the ability to love life. He is sent to Rome, where Augustus insists on looking at him.
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostoevsky. A man who has decided to shoot himself is stopped on the way home by a child begging for help, and falls asleep in his chair instead. He dreams of a planet where no one has ever sinned, and of what he does there.
Reading them together
The collection's argument is that faith in fiction is shown by what a character does while waiting. Martin serves tea; the hermits keep praying badly; the king digs; Kandata climbs and then looks down. Tolstoy's four parables all reward the waiting, and the collection is honest enough to include the stories that do not: Goodman Brown's forest, Dukhi's log, the eyes of Lazarus.
The Student and The Spider's Thread turn on a single act of attention, a widow weeping at an old story and a robber glancing down, and both writers let eternity hang on it.
If you want to write about faith
What writers can take from this
- Read The Student first; Chekhov called it his favourite of his own stories and it is under two thousand words.
- Tolstoy's four parables are best read one per evening, in the order given.
- Young Goodman Brown and The Spider's Thread make a strong pair on temptation, one long and one very short.
- Deliverance is furious and short; read it after The Three Hermits to feel the distance between two kinds of priest.
- Lazarus and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man are the strange ones; give them the last evening.
Try it yourself
Write a story in which a character spends a whole day waiting for a visitor they were promised, helps three people in the meantime, and never quite decides whether the promise was kept.
Questions
What is the best short story about faith?
The Student is the writers' choice, and Where Love Is, God Is the readers'. Young Goodman Brown is the standard in American classrooms.
Which short stories about faith are good for students?
Three Questions, The Three Hermits, The Spider's Thread and What Men Live By are short parables that invite discussion. Young Goodman Brown is the usual choice for symbolism.
Which classic story about faith is the shortest?
The Spider's Thread, at about a thousand words. Three Questions and The Student are each under two thousand.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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