His mother was going, against her will, and no one could tell him whither she was going.

If he could only stop her dying, force God to leave her alone, to leave her with them all as she had been before...
He fixed his eyes upon his father, who climbed slowly into his pulpit and gave out the text of his sermon.

To-day he would talk about the sacrifice of Isaac.

"Abraham, as his hearers would remember..." and so on.
Jeremy listened, and gradually there grew before his eyes the figure of a strange and terrible God.

This was no new figure.