and I’m Joseph Stangerson, who travelled with you in the desert when the Lord stretched out His hand and gathered you into the true fold.” “As He will all the nations in His own good time,” said the other in a nasal voice; “He grindeth slowly but exceeding small.” John Ferrier bowed coldly. He had guessed who his visitors were. . . . Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet (1886) (emphasis added). The proverb was used by Agatha Christie in her novel Hercule Poirot's Christmas, as a person quoted it when they saw the corpse of a man who had lived an evil life. It was also referred to by W. Somerset Maugham in the novel The Moon and Sixpence wherein it is used, somewhat piously, by a family member to imply a certain justice in the demise of the central character Charles Strickland, During the Second World War, both Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt quoted Longfellow when promising retribution for the extermination of the Jews. References Further reading See also Ancestral fault Justice delayed is justice denied Greek proverbs Justice Revenge Punishment Theodicy Quotations from religion