It may be questioned whether this masterly speech, perfect though it was in subject and form, made any impression for the moment. At all events it led to no lasting improvement, for Isaiah and contemporary prophets had still often to preach against the same errors and the same sins. The nobles could not easily be converted; they scorned and scoffed at the threats of an awful future. But Isaiah's powerful words have not been spoken in vain; they have influenced people to whom they were not addressed; they have been heard in distant lands, among distant nations, and in remote days. Isaiah did not content himself with inveighing against sin; he depicted a moral ideal, through the realisation of which men would find happiness and contentment. "The king shall rule with justice, and cause the princes to govern according to right." "The king shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, and shall not decide after the hearing of his ears." Isaiah treated with great contempt the hypocrisy which praises God with the lips whilst the heart is far from Him. He scorned still more the offering of sacrifices combined with baseness of thought and wickedness of deed. (Isaiah xxix. 13; i. 11-14.) Isaiah appears to have used other means besides soul-stirring sermons, in order to heal the moral and religious ills of Judah. Adopting the measures of Elijah and Samuel, he assembled around himself those who shared his principles, or instructed young men and imbued them with his spirit. From among those who had suffered from the injustice and tyranny of the nobles of Judah, he drew into his circle the thoughtful and susceptible, who became at once his disciples and his children. He did not instil into them impatient and impetuous zeal, but he impressed on them the virtues of gentleness, patience, and entire resignation to God. The members of the circle which he had collected around him were called the "gentle ones," or "the sufferers of the land" (Anavim, Anve-Arez). They were mostly either of poor family, or impoverished through the depredations of the nobles. They called themselves or were called "the poor" (Dallim, Ebionim). From Isaiah they learnt not to complain of poverty and spoliation, but to bear suffering and wrong with faith in God and His dispensations. These "gentle ones" formed a special community, to which they devoted all their heart and mind, and to which Isaiah and his successors looked forward as the national core and substance. They were expected to regenerate and purify the entire people. These poor Anavim were to become the popular models of virtue. The light shed by these great prophets cast beneficent rays around; germs of thought, which lay hidden in the teachings of Sinai, came to light, and the spiritual rulership of the nation became established through them. Isaiah, therefore, forms a turning point in the national history of the people of Israel, as Samuel and, in a lesser degree, Elijah had done before him.