A murmur of pleasure followed the words of Uriel, and eager looks flashed around the circle of the messengers of light as they heard the praise of wisdom fitly spoken.  But there was one among them on whose face a shadow of doubt rested, and though he smiled, it was as if he remembered something that the others had forgotten.  He turned to an angel near him.

“Who was it,” said he, “to whom you were sent with counsel long ago?  Was it not Balaam the son of Beor, as he was riding to meet the King of Moab?  And did not even the dumb beast profit more by your instruction than the man who rode him?  And who was it,” he continued, turning to Uriel, “that was called the wisest of all men, having searched out and understood the many inventions that are found under the sun?  Was not Solomon, prince of fools and philosophers, unable by much learning to escape weariness of the flesh and despair of the spirit?  Knowledge also is vanity and vexation.  This I know well, because I have dwelt among men and held converse with them since the day when I was sent to instruct the first man in Eden.”

Then I looked more closely at him who was speaking and recognised the beauty of the archangel Raphael, as it was pictured long ago: 

  “A seraph winged; six wings he wore to shade
  His lineaments divine; the pair that clad
  Each shoulder broad came mantling o’er his breast,
  With regal ornament; the middle pair
  Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round
  Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold
  And colours dipped in Heav’n; the third his feet
  Shadowed from either heel with feathered mail,
  Sky-tinctured grain.  Like Maia’s son he stood
  And shook his plumes, that Heavenly fragrance filled
  The circuit wide.”

“Too well I know,” he spoke on, while the smile on his face deepened into a look of pity and tenderness and desire, “too well I know that power corrupts itself and that knowledge cannot save.  There is no cure for the evil that is in the world but by the giving of more love to men.  The laws that are ordained for earth are strange and unequal, and the ways where men must walk are full of pitfalls and dangers.  Pestilence creeps along the ground and flows in the rivers; whirlwind and tempest shake the habitations of men and drive their ships to destruction; fire breaks forth from the mountains and the foundations of the world tremble.  Frail is the flesh of man, and many are his pains and troubles.  His children can never find peace until they learn to love one another and to help one another.

“Wickedness is begotten by disease and misery.  Violence comes from poverty and hunger.  The cruelty of oppression is when the strong tread the weak under their feet; the bitterness of pride is when the wise and learned despise the simple; the crown of folly is when the rich think they are gods, and the poor think that God is not.