Milton excuses Oliver Cromwell's want of bookish application in his youth thus:–'It did not become that hand to wax soft in literary ease which was to be inured to the use of arms and hardened with asperity; that right arm to be softly wrapped up among the birds of Athens, by which thunderbolts were soon afterwards to be hurled among the eagles which emulate the sun.'

Carnal ease and worldly wisdom are not becoming in the soldier of Jesus Christ. He has to wrestle against principalities and powers, and has need of sterner qualities than those which sparkle in the eyes of fashion or adorn the neck of elegance.