She read the volume through as
she strolled in those twilights, not without risking many a fall over bush
and stone ere practice taught her to see at once both the way for her feet
over the moor, and that for her eyes over the printed page. The book both
pleased and suited her, the parts that interested her most being those
about the repentant angel, Abaddon; who, if I remember aright, haunted the
steps of the Saviour, and hovered about the cross while he was crucified.
The great question with her for a long time was, whether the Saviour must
not have forgiven him; but by slow degrees it became at last clear to her,
that he who came but to seek and to save the lost, could not have closed
the door against one that sought return to his fealty. It was not until
she knew the soutar, however, that at length she understood the tireless
redeeming of the Father, who had sent men blind and stupid and ill-
conditioned, into a world where they had to learn almost everything.
There were some few books of a more theological sort, which happily she
neither could understand nor was able to imagine she understood, and which
therefore she instinctively refused, as affording nourishment neither for
thought nor feeling.
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