That must burn while _the_ Father lives!
that must burn until the universe _is_ the Father and his children, and
none beside. That fire, however long held down and crushed together by the
weight of unkindled fuel, must go on to gather heat, and, gathering, it
must glow, and at last break forth in the scorching, yea devouring flames
of a righteous indignation: the Father must and _will_ be supreme, that
his children perish not! But as yet _The Father_ endured and was silent;
and the child-parents also must endure and be still! In the meantime their
son remained hidden from them as by an impervious moral hedge; he never
came out from behind it, never stood clear before them, and they were
unable to break through to him: within his citadel of indifference there
was no angelic traitor to draw back the bolts of its iron gates, and let
them in. They had gone on hoping, and hoping in vain, for some holy,
lovely change in him; but at last had to confess it a relief when he left
the house, and went to Edinburgh.
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