Thomas Wingfold. Volume III by George MacDonald

The next day was Sunday.

Twelve months had not yet elapsed since the small events with which / my narrative opened. The change which had passed, not merely upon / the opinions, but in the heart and mind and very being of the / curate, had not then begun to appear even to himself, although its / roots were not only deep in him but deep beyond him, even in the / source of him; and now he was in a state of mind, a state of being, / rather, of whose nature at that time he had not, and could not have / had, the faintest fore-feeling, the most shadowy conception. It had / been a season of great trouble, but the gain had been infinitely / greater; for now were the bonds of the finite broken, he had burst / the shell of the mortal, and was of those over whom the second death / hath no power. The agony of the second birth was past, and he was a / child again -- only a child, he knew, but a child of the kingdom; and / the world, and all that God cared about in it, was his, as no / miser's gold could ever belong to its hoarder, while the created / universe, yea and the uncreated also whence it sprang, lay open to / him in the boundless free-giving of the original Thought. "All / things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's: " he / understood the words even as he who said them understood them, and / as the wise of this world never will understand them until first / they become fools that they may be wise.