This had
often deeply distressed him and made him timid and shy in his
dealings with men and women. It was this, more than anything else,
that held him back from the ambition to proselytise. How could he go
forth and challenge men's souls when he could not understand nor
feel their difficulties? More and more as his years advanced had he
retired into himself, into his own mystical world of communion with
a God who drew ever nearer and nearer to him. He humbled himself
before men; he did not believe himself better than they because he
had not yielded to their temptations; but he could not help them;
his tongue was tied; he was a man cut off from his fellows and he
knew it.
He had never felt so impatient of his impotence as he did to-night.
For ten years he had been waiting for this interview with his son,
and now that it was come he was timid and afraid as though he had
been opposed by a stranger. He had always known that Martin would
return. It had been his one worldly ambition and prayer to have him
at his side again. When he had thought and dreamt of the time that
was coming, he had thought that it would be simple enough to win the
boy back to the old allegiance and faith to which he had once been
bound.
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