She was silent, pained by his words, and put her arm round him as if to shelter him from the evil one. Homage to will and word of the Master, apart from the acceptance of certain doctrines concerning him, was in her eyes not merely defective but dangerous. To love the Lord with the love of truest obedience; to believe him the son of God and the saver of men with absolute acceptance of the heart, was far from enough! it was but sentimental affection! A certain young preacher in Scotland some years ago, accused by an old lady of preaching works, took refuge in the Lord's sermon on the mount: "Ow ay!" answered the partisan, "but he was a varra yoong mon whan he preacht that sermon!" Alister rose and went: there was to him something specially sacred in the communion of his mother and brother. Heartily he held with Ian, but shrank from any difference with his mother. For her sake he received Sunday after Sunday in silence what was to him a bushel of dust with here and there a bit of mouldy bread in it; but the mother did not imagine any great coincidence of opinion between her and Alister any more than between her and Ian. She had not the faintest notion how much genuine faith both of them had, or how it surpassed her own in vitality. But while Ian seemed to his brother, who knew him best, hardly touched with earthly stain, Alister, notwithstanding his large and dominant humanity, was still in the troublous condition of one trying to do right against a powerful fermentation of pride. He held noblest principles; but the sediment of generations was too easily stirred up to cloud them. He was not quite honest in his attitude towards some of his ancestors, judging them far more leniently than he would have judged others. He loved his neighbour, but his neighbour was mostly of his own family or his own clan. He MIGHT have been unjust for the sake of his own--a small fault in the eyes of the world, but a great fault indeed in a nature like his, capable of being so much beyond it. For, while the faults of a good man cannot be such evil things as the faults of a bad man, they are more blameworthy, and greater faults than the same would be in a bad man: we must not confuse the guilt of the person with the abstract evil of the thing. Ian was one of those blessed few who doubt in virtue of a larger faith. While its roots were seeking a deeper soil, it could not show so fast a growth above ground, He doubted most about the things he loved best, while he devoted the energies of a mind whose keenness almost masked its power, to discover possible ways of believing them. To the wise his doubts would have been his best credentials; they were worth tenfold the faith of most. It was truth, and higher truth, he was always seeking. The sadness which coloured his deepest individuality, only one thing could ever remove--the conscious presence of the Eternal. This is true of all sadness, but Ian knew it. He overtook Alister on his way to the barley-field.