"I thought, Father, that many men did destroy their own success by being too eager to grasp thereat, afore God had it ready."
"Thou hast well spoken, Lawrence—'afore God had it ready.' Hast thou read certain words of Saint Stephen the martyr touching Moyses, that great Prophet of God? 'He guessed that his brethren should understand that God should give to them health by the hand of him: but they understood not.' How should they? Nor was it they that were lacking. It was Moyses that understood not—understood not that the day of deliverance was not come by forty years—that forty years' keeping of sheep in Midian must needs be first. Yet God did mean to deliver them by his hand; it was not undone, only latered.[#] He did so when the right time came—when He was ready, and when Moyses was ready, and when Israel was ready."
[#] Deferred.
"It seemeth me," answered Lawrence, sighing, "that man lacketh much training at our Lord's hand, ere he be fit for a deliverer."
"More than any can rightly judge, out-taken our Lord. The fellowship of Christ's work may well include the fellowship of Christ's sufferings. Mark thou, a stone-breaker needs no training; a goldsmith must have much. The finer the tool shall be, the sharper must be the grinding of it. What is behind thy thoughts, Lawrence?"
"Methinks, Father, you wit my Lord's earnest desire to be he that should peace Ireland with England?—and you know how foot-hot he flingeth himself, soul and body, into all that cometh to his hand for to be done?"
"I know," said Mr. Robesart, with a smile in which amusement and pity had equal shares.
"I was marvelling if he were ready," said Lawrence in the same low voice. "I am something feared lest he may run ere he be sent."
"Men of his disposition are prone to make that blunder."
"That would not bring success."