the great, the fearful problem--a
problem which both reason and revelation propound; but the truths which
can alone solve it, seem to lie beyond the horizon of darkness--and we
vex ourselves in vain. 'Tis a sort of moral asymptotes; but its lines,
instead of approaching through all space without meeting, seem receding
through all space, and yet meet."

"Robert, my bairn," said my aunt, "I fear you are wasting your strength
on these mysteries to your ain hurt. Did ye no see, in the last storm,
when ye staid out among the caves till cock-crow, that the bigger and
stronger the wave, the mair was it broken against the rocks?--it's just
thus wi' the pride o' man's understanding, when he measures it against
the dark things o' God. An' yet it's sae ordered, that the same
wonderful truths which perplex and cast down the proud reason, should
delight and comfort the humble heart. I am a lone, puir woman, Robert.
Bairns an' husband have gone down to the grave, one by one; an' now, for
twenty weary years, I have been childless an' a widow. But trow ye that
the puir lone woman wanted a guard, an' a comforter, an' a provider,
through a' the lang mirk nichts, an' a' the cauld scarce winters o'
these twenty years? No, my bairn--I kent that Himsel' was wi' me. I kent
it by the provision He made, an' the care He took, an' the joy He gave.
An' how, think you, did He comfort me maist? Just by the blessed
assurance that a' my trials an' a' my sorrows were nae hasty chance
matters, but dispensations for my guid, an' the guid o' those He took to
Himsel', that, in the perfect love and wisdom o' His nature, He had
ordained frae the beginning."

"Ah, mother," said my friend, after a pause, "you understand the
doctrine far better than I do! There are, I find, no contradictions in
the Calvinism of the heart."

CHAPTER III.

"Ayr, gurgling, kissed his pebbled shore,
O'erhung with wild woods thick'ning green;
The fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar
Twined, amorous, round the raptured scene;

The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
The birds sang love on every spray--
Till, too, too soon, the glowing west
Proclaimed the speed of winged day."
_To Mary in Heaven_.

We were early on the road together; the day, though somewhat gloomy, was
mild and pleasant, and we walked slowly onward, neither of us in the
least disposed to hasten our parting by hastening our journey.