2. A burst of laughter comes very weirdly out of the Exile. But we have already seen the intellectual right to scorn which these crushed captives had. They were monotheists and their enemies were image worshippers. Monotheism, even in its rudest forms, raises men intellectually,--it is difficult to say by how many degrees. Indeed, degrees do not measure the mental difference between an idolater and him who serves with his mind, as well as with all his heart and soul, One God, Maker of heaven and earth: it is a difference that is absolute. Israel in captivity was conscious of this, and therefore, although the souls of those sad men were filled beyond any in the world with the heaviness of sorrow and the humility of guilt, their proud faces carried a scorn they had every right to wear, as the servants of the One God. See how this scorn breaks forth in the following passage. Its text is corrupt, and its rhythm, at this distance from the voices that utter it, is hardly perceptible; but thoroughly evident is its tone of intellectual superiority, and the scorn of it gushes forth in impetuous, unequal verse, the force of which the smoothness and dignity of our Authorised Version has unfortunately disguised. 1. _Formers of an idol are all of them waste,_ _And their darlings are utterly worthless!_ _And their confessors_[87]--_they! they see not and know not_ Enough _to feel shame._ _Who has fashioned a god, or an image has cast?_ _'Tis to be utterly worthless._ _Lo! all that depend on't are shamed,_ _And the gravers are less than men:_ _Let all of them gather_ and _stand._ _They quake and are shamed in the lump._ 2. _Iron-graver_--he takes[88] _a chisel,_ _And works with hot coals,_ _And with hammers he moulds;_ _And has done it with the arm of his strength._ _--Anon hungers, and strength goes;_ _Drinks no water, and wearies!_ 3. _Wood-graver--he draws a line,_ _Marks it with pencil,_ _Makes it with planes,_ _And with compasses marks it._ _So has made it the build of a man,_ _To a grace that is human--_ _To inhabit a house, cutting it cedars._[89] 4.