Moreover it would have been disastrous for the Wise themselves, had the world accepted their way of life as indisputable truth. Think what would have happened to their characters, already inclined to superiority, if with one accord men had bowed down to their every word and received their maxims as beyond the breath of criticism. The point of course, is not one that the Sages would have appreciated. Few men can resist the impression (and those few must be cold-blooded, unenthusiastic souls) that all would be well, provided their lightest word was law. What a truly delightful world, where one’s judgments met only with reverent and grateful admiration! Yet were God to give us the desire of our hearts, we might construct a universe excellent according to our standard, and be left ourselves the only insufferable persons in it. “Sweet are the uses of adversity.” There was, however, little danger of the Wise being spoilt by approbation. They may have had a sufficiently good conceit of themselves, but they cannot possibly have been ignorant that many of their neighbours held them in very different esteem; and whenever a Wise-man in old Jerusalem put his heart into the effort to guide his brethren into the path of understanding he can have been under few, if any, delusions regarding the obstacles in the way. In the last two chapters we have been picturing life as the Wise desired it to be, not as they actually found it. Our next duty is to descend from these heights to the plain where opposition waited to test what stuff the Wise-men’s dreams were made of. Not without courage, not without patience, were they able to keep these ideals in their hearts.