He had been baffled and buffeted in the world.

He had gone down into the darkness, praying all the way; and now that he had come out of it, and had so little society; now that his young life was all behind him, and so few earthly hopes beckoned him on, he turned with a heart morbidly religious to what seemed to him the only source of comfort open to him.

Jim had watched him with pain.

He had seen him, from day to day, spending his hours alone, and felt that prayer formed almost the staple of his life.
He had seen him willing to work, but knew that his heart was not in it.
He was not willing to go back into the world, and assert his place among men.

The poverty, disease, and disgrace of his former life dwelt in his memory, and he shrank from the conflicts and competitions which would be necessary to enable him to work out better results for himself.
Jim thoroughly believed that Benedict was religiously diseased, and that he never could become a man again until he had ceased to live so exclusively in the spiritual world.