He looked down into the book which lay open on the desk between the two windows; he compared it with the one he held in his hand. All the while he listened to the roar of the steamer which came cutting in across the lake. He felt obliged to look out of the furthest window, and the result was that unconsciously he sat himself down there. The sun was shining on the steamer's white awning, a line of foam stretched between shore and island like a rope; not the tiniest cloud was in the sky, so that the smoke rose up against a clear background and the noise of the steamer was heard distinctly. The clergyman looked from the steamer to the town, to the shore, across the lake, and towards the hills away on the other side of the lake; the snow still lay on most of the distant blue hills. The noise of the steamer seemed to fill everything, like another sermon following upon his own. The modest fragrance coming from his own little garden attracted his eyes from the greater to the less. Little Edward and he had done it all together, that is to say, he had really done it, and little Edward had been there to make mischief. The minister examined first the beds on which as yet nothing had come up, then he looked at those that had been first finished, they already wanted weeding. Little Edward could very well help with that. Tiresome, very; but he had promised himself that nobody but he should touch the garden this year; bending is a healthy thing, it causes the gall to mix freely with the blood. His thoughts turned unconsciously to his wife; when would she come to him with a glass of wine and a bit of cake? It is in the nature of women to guess our weaknesses and to be lenient to them. He looked up, she had disappeared; he then stood bolt upright: "----The claims of the law, which are God's own, must be fulfilled. If a sinner could do this by himself, then there would be no mercy in justification; consequently it must be by the help of another. "But even this atonement by another must come of God's saving mercy, if it is not to do away with justification (oh, how juridical!). If this work of mercy is to be a benefit to all, then the atonement must be extended to the whole of sinful humanity. If only the Almighty Himself can bring about a like atonement, a like reconciliation and justification. "It is a basis of faith for all Christians, that this doctrine of the salvation of the world, and the forgiveness of sins of the whole of humanity, once for all, are obtained through Jesus Christ, and that each individual sinner can reap the benefit thereof."