A VISION, 73

was prepared to ee And when I sank on my
knees for confession, and the wholesome rain of
tears overflowed my cheeks, still, even amidst the
choked utterances of each acknowledgment, my
spirit “rejoiced in God my Saviour.”

True, indeed, the mystery with which I started
remained a mystery still—the perfection of the
lower, the perversion of the higher natures. But
those who have recognized with keenness their per-
sonal responsibility for some, at any rate, of the
evil which exists, care but little to theorize about
its origin. What the soul yearns for then is a
remedy, and, God be praised, that is never wanting
wherever the Gospel of the Redeemer is known.

Under this thought the contrasts which had
seemed so painful before, ceased to. distress me.
As I returned, I looked at the almond-trees and the
blue sky, and read in the perfection of the lower
nature the assurance that God wills the perfec-
tion of the higher, while the consciousness of
present evil was absorbed in the joy of the mercy
by which it is remedied.

If I went to church that morning with less