So wrought in him that mighty power, mysterious in its origin as marvellous in its result, which had been at work in him all the time he lay whelmed under feverish phantasms. His repentance was true; he had been dead, and was alive again! God and the man had met at last! As to _how_ God turned the man’s heart, Thou God, knowest. To understand that, we should have to go down below the foundations themselves, underneath creation, and there see God send out from himself man, the spirit, distinguished yet never divided from God, the spirit, for ever dependent upon and growing in Him, never completed and never ended, his origin, his very life being infinite; never outside of God, because _in_ him only he lives and moves and grows, and _has_ his being. Brothers, let us not linger to ask! let us obey, and, obeying, ask what we will! thus only shall we become all we are capable of being; thus only shall we learn all we are capable of knowing! The pure in heart shall see God; and to see him is to know all things. Something like this was the meditation of the soutar, as he saw the farmer stride away into the dusk of the gathering twilight, going home with glad heart to his wife and son. Peter had told the soutar that his son was sorely troubled because of a sin of his youth and its long concealment: now he was bent on all the reparation he could make. “Mr. Robertson,” said Peter, “broucht the lass to oor hoose, never mentionin Jamie, for he didna ken they war onything til ane anither; and for her, she never said ae word aboot him to Mirran or me.” The soutar went to the door, and called Isy. She came, and stood humbly before her old master. “Weel, Isy,” said the farmer kindly, “ye gied ’s a clever slip yon morning and a gey fricht forbye! What possessed ye, lass, to dee sic a thing?” She stood distressed, and made no answer. “Hoot, lassie, tell me!” insisted Peter; “I haena been an ill maister til ye, have I?” “Sir, ye hae been like the maister o’ a’ til me! But I canna—that is, I maunna—or raither, I’m determined no to explain the thing til onybody.” “Thoucht ye my wife was feart the minister micht fa’ in love wi ye?” “Weel, sir, there micht hae been something like that intil ’t! But I wantit sair to win at my bairn again; for i’ that trance I lay in sae lang, I saw or h’ard something I took for an intimation that he was alive, and no that far awa.—And—wad ye believe’t, sir?—i’ this vera hoose I fand him, and here I hae him, and I’m jist as happy the noo as I was meeserable afore! Is ’t ill o’ me at I _canna_ be sorry ony mair?” “Na, na,” interposed the soutar: “whan the Lord wad lift the burden, it wad be baith senseless and thankless to grup at it! In His name lat it gang, lass!” “And noo,” said Mr. Blatherwick, again taking up his probe, “ye hae but ae thing left to confess—and that’s wha’s the father o’ ’im!”