We were all very quiet at this outburst, so unusual in our Teacher. Two or three youths near my seat seemed stimulated rather than depressed. But to me it seemed a sad confession of failure, amounting, in effect, to this, “I have taught from the days of Vespasian to the second year of Hadrian. My business has been to produce Stoics. Up to this day, a real Stoic is”—these were his words—“_a sight that up to this day my eyes have never enjoyed_.” What a contrast, thought I, between _my_ Teacher (for “mine” I still called him) and that other, the Jew, Paul, (whom I refused to call “mine”) who numbered his pupils by cities, and whose campaigns from Jerusalem to Rome, through Asia and Greece, had been a succession of victories, leading trains of prisoners captive under the banner of the Crucified! What followed amazed me, forcing me to the conclusion that Epictetus was profoundly ignorant of human nature, at all events of our nature, and perhaps of his own. For instead of saying, “We have been on the wrong road,” or “You have not the power to walk, and I have not the power to make you walk,” he found fault with himself and us, without attempting to shew what the fault was. At first it seemed our lack of noble ambition. “Not one of you,” he exclaimed, “desires, from being man, to pass into becoming God. Not one of you is planning how he may pass through the dungeon of this paltry body to fellowship with Zeus!” But then he shifted his ground, saying, in effect, “I am your teacher. You are my pupils. My aim is so to perfect your characters that each of you may live unrestrained, uncoerced, unhindered, unshackled, free, prosperous, blessed, looking to God alone in every matter great or small. You, on your side, come here to learn and to practise these things. Why, then, do you fail to do the work in hand, if you on your side have the right aim, object, and purpose, and _I on my side—in addition to right aim, object, and purpose—have the right preparation_? What is deficient?”