Surely she was not ready yet to hear such words as he had meant to speak.

He would put this sermon away for some future Sunday, when the truth would be less of a shock to her.

"She must come to the knowledge of God slowly," he thought.

"It must not burst upon her; it might only drive her further from the light to hear of justice as well as mercy.

She is not able to bear it yet." So he took some fresh paper, and wrote, instead of his lurid text from Hebrews, "Ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." But when Helen went out of the study, she thought very little of sermons or doctrines.