He himself prepared by taking to himself a wife, a calm untroubled countrywoman of the place, that she might give him a son whom he might prepare, in due course, for his great destiny.

John, father of Martin, was born, a large-limbed, smiling infant, with the tranquillity of his mother as well as something of the mysticism of his father.
Upon him, as upon his ancestors, this consciousness of God had most absolutely descended.

Never for a moment did he question the facts that his father told to him.

He grew into a giant of health and strength, and those who, in those old days, saw them tell that it was a strange picture to watch the little wizened man, walking with odd emotional gestures, with little hops and leaps and swinging of the arms beside the firm long stride of the young man towering above him.
When young John was twenty-three years of age his father was found dead under a tree upon a summer's evening.

His expression was of a man challenging some new and startling discovery; he had found perhaps new visions to confront his gaze.