Only one glimpse of human affection had he known as a man, and here it was taken from him for ever.
And when he remembered Naomi, he quarrelled with God again.

She was a helpless exile among men, a creature banished from all human intercourse, a living soul locked in a tabernacle of flesh.

Was it a good God who had taken the mother from such a child--the child from such a mother?
Israel was heart-smitten, and his soul blasphemed.

It was not God but the devil that ruled the world.

It was not justice but evil that governed it.
Thus did this outcast man rebel against God, thinking of the child's loss and of his own; but nevertheless by the child itself he was yet to be saved from the devil's snare, and the ways wherein this sweet flower, fresh from God's hand, wrought upon his heart to redeem it were very strange and beautiful..