eview her past life,
and follow her lost son through all conditions and circumstances to her
imaginable. And when the world to come arose before her, clad in all the
glories which her fancy, chilled by education and years, could supply,
it was but to vanish in the gloom of the remembrance of him with whom
she dared not hope to share its blessedness. This at least was how
Falconer afterwards interpreted the sudden changes from gladness to
gloom which he saw at such times on her countenance.

But while such a small portion of the universe of thought was
enlightened by the glowworm lamp of the theories she had been taught,
she was not limited for light to that feeble source. While she walked
on her way, the moon, unseen herself behind the clouds, was illuminating
the whole landscape so gently and evenly, that the glowworm being the
only visible point of radiance, to it she attributed all the light. But
she felt bound to go on believing as she had been taught; for sometimes
the most original mind has the strongest sense of law upon it, and will,
in default of a better, obey a beggarly one--only till the higher law
that swallows it up manifests itself. Obedience was as essential an
element of her creed as of that of any purest-minded monk; neither being
sufficiently impressed with this: that, while obedience is the law of
the kingdom, it is of considerable importance that that which is obeyed
should be in very truth the will of God. It is one thing, and a good
thing, to do for God's sake that which is not his will: it is another
thing, and altogether a better thing--how much better, no words can
tell--to do for God's sake that which is his will. Mrs. Falconer's
submission and obedience led her to accept as the will of God, lest she
should be guilty of opposition to him, that which it was anything but
giving him honour to accept as such. Therefore her love to God was too
like the love of the slave or the dog; too little like the love of the
child, with whose obedience the Father cannot be satisfied until he
cares for his reason as the highest form of his will. True, the child
who most faithfully desires to know the inward will or reason of
the Father, will be the most ready to obey without it; only for this
obedience it is essential that the apparent command at least be such as
he can suppose attributable to the Father. Of his own self he is bound
to judge what is right, as the Lord said. Had Abraham doubted whether it
was in