sick to know that she was trembling from head to foot. Such was the
hold, such the authority of traditional human dogma on her soul--a
soul that scorned the notion of priestly interposition between God
and his creature--that, instead of glorifying God that she had
given birth to such a man, she wept bitterly because he was on the
broad road to eternal condemnation.

But as she lay, now weeping, now still and cold with despair, she
found that for some time she had not been thinking. But she had not
been asleep! Whence then was this quiet that was upon her? Something
had happened, though she knew of nothing! There was in her as it
were a moonlight of peace!

"Can it be God?" she said to herself.

No more than Ian could she tell whether it was God or not; but from
that night she had an idea in her soul by which to reach after "the
peace of God." She lifted up her heart in such prayer as she had
never prayed before; and slowly, imperceptibly awoke in her the
feeling that, if she was not believing aright, God would not
therefore cast her off, but would help her to believe as she ought
to believe: was she not willing? Therewith she began to feel as if
the gulf betwixt her and Ian were not so wide as she had supposed;
and that if it were, she would yet hope in the Son of Man. Doubtless
he was in rebellion against God, seeing he would question his ways,
and refuse to believe the word he had spoken, but surely something
might be done for him! The possibility had not yet dawned upon her
that there could be anything in the New Testament but those
doctrines against which the best in him revolted. She little
suspected the glory of sky and earth and sea eternal that would one