Balthasar drank, and, seeming refreshed, continued:
"The Savior I saw was born of woman, in nature like us, and subject to all our ills-even death. Let that stand as the first proposition. Consider next the work set apart to him. Was it not a performance for which only a man is fitted?-a man wise, firm, discreet-a man, no a child? To become such he had to grow as we grow.Bethink you now of the dangers his life was subject to in the interval-the long interval between childhood and maturity. The existing powers were his enemies;Herod was his enemy; and what would Rome have been? And as for Israel-that he should not be accepted by Israel was the motive for cutting him off. See you now. What better way was there to take care of his life in the helpless growing time than by passing him into obscurity? Wherefore I say to myself, and to my listening faith, which is never moved except by yearning of love-I say he is not dead, but lost;and, his work remaining undone, he will come again.There you have the reasons for my belief. Are they not good?"