Such was the man under whose teaching Epictetus grew to maturity, and it was evidently a teaching which was wise and noble, even if it were somewhat chilling and austere.  It formed an epoch in the slave’s life; it remoulded his entire character; it was to him the source of blessings so inestimable in their value that it is doubtful whether they were counter-balanced by all the miseries of poverty, slavery, and contempt.  He would probably have admitted that it was better for him to have been sold into cruel slavery, than it would have been to grow up in freedom, obscurity, and ignorance in his native Hierapolis.  So that Epictetus might have found, and did find, in his own person, an additional argument in favour of Divine Providence:  an additional proof that God is kind and merciful to all men; an additional intensity of conviction that, if our lots on earth are not equal, they are at least dominated by a principle of justice and of wisdom, and each man, on the whole, may gain that which is best for him, and that which most honestly and most heartily he desires.  Epictetus reminds us again and again that we may have many, if not all, such advantages as the world has to offer, if we are willing to pay the price by which they are obtained.  But if that price be a mean or a wicked one, and if we should scorn ourselves were we ever tempted to pay it, then we must not even cast one longing look of regret towards things which can only be got by that which we deliberately refuse to give.  Every good and just man may gain, if not happiness, then something higher than happiness.  Let no one regard this as a mere phrase, for it is capable of a most distinct and definite meaning.  There are certain things which all men desire, and which all men would gladly, if they could lawfully and innocently obtain.  These things are health, wealth, ease, comfort, influence, honour, freedom from opposition and from pain; and yet, if you were to place all these blessings on the one side, and on the other side to place poverty, and disease, and anguish, and trouble, and contempt,—­yet, if on this side also you were to place truth and justice, and a sense that, however densely the clouds may gather about our life, the light of God will be visible beyond them, all the noblest men who ever lived would choose, as without hesitation they always have chosen, the latter destiny.  It is not that they like failure, but they prefer failure to falsity; it is not that they love persecution, but they prefer persecution to meanness; it is not that they relish opposition, but they welcome opposition rather than guilty acquiescence; it is not that they do not shrink from agony, but they would not escape agony by crime.  The selfishness of Dives in his purple is to them less enviable than the innocence of Lazarus in rags; they would be chained with John in prison rather than loll with Herod at the feast; they would fight with beasts with Paul in the arena rather than be steeped in the foul luxury of Nero on the throne.  It is not happiness, but it is something higher than happiness; it is stillness, it is assurance, it is satisfaction, it is peace; the world can neither understand it, nor give it, nor take it away,—­it is something indescribable—­it is the gift of God.