But must not the divine nature, the pitiful heart of the universe, have already begun to reassert itself in him, before that would hurt him?  Upon such a man the justice in my heart desires this retribution—­to desire more would be to be more vile than he; to desire less would not be to love my brother:—­that the soul capable of such deeds shall be compelled to know the nature of its deeds in the light of the absolute Truth—­that the eternal fact shall flame out from the divine region of its own conscience until it writhe in the shame of being itself, loathe as absolute horror the deeds which it would now justify, and long for deliverance from that which it has made of itself.  The moment the discipline begins to blossom, the moment the man begins to thirst after confession and reparation, then is he once more my brother; then from an object of disgust in spite of pity, he becomes a being for all tender, honest hearts in the universe of God to love, cherish, revere.

“Meantime, you who behold with aching hearts the wrongs done to the lower brethren that ought to be cherished as those to whom less has been given, having done all, stand comforted in the thought that not one of them suffers without the loving, caring, sustaining presence of the great Father of the universe, the Father of men, the God and Father of Jesus Christ, the God of the sparrows and the ravens and the oxen—­yea, of the lilies of the field.”

As might be expected, Mrs. Ramshorn was indignant.  What right had he to desecrate a pulpit of the Church of England by misusing it for the publication of his foolish fancies about creatures that had not reason!  Of course nobody would think of being cruel to them, poor things!  But there was that silly man talking about them as if they were better Christians than any of them!  He was intruding into things he had not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.

The last portion of these remarks she made in the hearing of her niece, who carried it home for the amusement of her husband.  He said he could laugh with a good conscience, for the reading of the passage, according to the oldest manuscripts we have, was not “the things he hath not seen,” but “the things he hath seen,” and he thought it meant—­haunting the visible, the sensuous, the fleshly, so, for, the satisfaction of an earthly imagination, in love with embodiment for its own sake, worshiping angels, and not keeping hold of the invisible, the real, the true—­the mind, namely, and spirit of the living Christ, the Head.

“Poor auntie,” replied Helen, “would hold herself quite above the manuscripts.  With her it is the merest sectarianism and radicalism to meddle with the text as appointed to be read in churches.  What was good enough for the dean, must be far more than good enough for an unbeneficed curate!”

But the rector, who loved dogs and horses, was delighted with the sermon.

Faber’s whole carriage and conduct in regard to the painful matter was such as to add to Juliet’s confidence in him.  Somehow she grew more at ease in his company, and no longer took pains to avoid him.