Could no more attend his soul Were all it struggles after found at first And guesses changed to knowledge absolute, Than motion wait his body, were all else Than it the solid earth on every side, Where now through space he moves from rest to rest.[74] Thus with Christianity itself Will [man] give up fire For gold or purple once he knows its worth? Could he give Christ up were His worth as plain? Therefore, I say, to test man, the proofs shift, Nor may he grasp that fact like other fact, And straightway in his life acknowledge it, As, say, the indubitable bliss of fire.[75] The effect on human nature and life of the change of "guesses" to "knowledge absolute" is elsewhere exhibited in concrete form where Lazarus, in _An Epistle of Karshish_, is represented, as Browning's imagination would visualize him, in the years succeeding his resurrection from the dead. There the need for faith is accounted as no longer existing. During those four days of the spirit's sojourn beyond the limits of the visible world, the unveiled light of eternity had thrown into their true relative positions the things of time. Thenceforth, for him who had once _known_, the hopes and fears attendant upon uncertainty were no longer a possibility. In view of that which is eternal, temporal prosperity or adversity had become of small moment. The advance of a hostile force upon the sacred city, centre of the national life, was to the risen nature an event trifling as "the passing of a mule with gourds." Sickness, death, were alike met by the imperturbable "God wills." Yet this apparently immovable serenity was at once overthrown by contact with "ignorance and carelessness and sin." To the non-Christian onlooker, the attitude thus attained was attributable to the peculiar condition of life by which heaven was Opened to a soul while yet on earth, Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven. The man capable of this two-fold vision had indeed become but "a sign," noteworthy it is true, yet of little value as a practical example to his fellows, since what held good in this single and unprecedented case must be of no avail as a criterion for the multitude.