And then my eye, I cannot tell how, was caught by the book upon the table; when Alice came to her chair beside me, I told her to read me something. Alice was very tremulous and afraid, and feared I could not bear it, but I knew better; as she brought the candle nearer and began to read some chapters from the Gospel of John, I cannot tell how it was that after that terrible fit of illness and anguish I should, have felt my mind so clear and so much at leisure, it was like the fresh dewy interval after a thunderstorm when the air is lightened and the earth refreshed. As Alice read, I lay perfectly calm, holding my child in my arms, grave, composed, thoughtful, as if I had reached a new stage in my life. There seemed a certain novelty and freshness in these divine words; I was not listening to them mechanically, my imagination went back to the speaker, and realized what individual voice this was, addressing me as it addressed all the world. What wonderful words these were, what strange meanings: Justice, justice, God's meaning of the word, not man's; that He should bear it Himself,--the grand original, universal penalty. He, the offended one; no, not a weak, poor, benevolent forgiveness, not that, but justice, justice; divinest word! Justice, which blinds the very eyes of this poor humanity with that glorious interpretation which only the Lord could give, that he should bear the punishment, and not the criminal. Strange, strange, most strange! the word read differently when men translated it, but this was how God declared the unchangeable might and power it had, to a wavering, disquieted human heart, straggling with its poor wrongs and injuries, rejecting pity, demanding justice; how wonderful was all this! Alice stopped in her reading after a while, but my thoughts did not pause. I lay quite still, quite still, looking with my open eyes into the dim atmosphere with its faint rays of light, and fainter perfume. How my coward fancies slunk and stole away out of sight, out of hearing, of Him who spoke. My justice and His justice, how different they are; did the same name belong to them? I was not excited, I was not afraid; I thought of it all with a strange composure, an extraordinary calm conviction. I had no desire to sleep, yet I was quite at rest, I did not even feel guilty, only dolefully mistaken, wrong, as unlike Him as anything could be, and only able to wonder at His sublime and wonderful justice, and at the arrogant, presumptuous offence, which had taken the place of justice with me.