day burst upon her! that she would one day see God not only good but
infinitely good--infinitely better than she had dared to think him,
fearing to image him better than he was! Mortal, she dreaded being
more just than God, more pure than her maker!

"I will go away to-morrow!" said Ian to himself. "I am only a pain
to her. She will come to see things better without me! I cannot
live in her sight any longer now! I will go, and come again."

His heart broke forth in prayer.

"O God, let my mother see that thou art indeed true-hearted; that
thou dost not give us life by parings and subterfuges, but
abundantly; that thou dost not make men in order to assert thy
dominion over them, but that they may partake of thy life. O God,
have pity when I cannot understand, and teach me as thou wouldst the
little one whom, if thou wert an earthly father amongst us as thy
son was an earthly son, thou wouldst carry about in thy arms. When
pride rises in me, and I feel as if I ought to be free and walk
without thy hand; when it looks as if a man should be great in
himself, nor need help from God; then think thou of me, and I shall
know that I cannot live or think without the self-willing life; that
thou art because thou art, I am because thou art; that I am deeper
in thee than my life, thou more to my being than that being to
itself. Was not that Satan's temptation, Father? Did he not take
self for the root of self in him, when God only is the root of all
self? And he has not repented yet! Is it his thought coming up in
me, flung from the hollow darkness of his soul into mine? Thou
knowest, when it comes I am wretched. I love it not. I would have
thee lord and love over all. But I cannot understand: how comes it