To bring the Kingdom of Heaven down to earth now, means seeking an indirect approach, as Sir Basil Liddell Hart would say. My own ambitions were generally much more modest. I tried to play my part in maintaining a decent just society; in which the guilty were convicted, the innocent acquitted, and the victims of crime were able to sleep soundly without the fear of the midnight knock at the door asking why they had dared to give evidence against a man who thought he was immune. Although I have always thought a man who transgressed should be allowed one chance, if the offence was such as to allow it, I did not think that a man should be allowed 4, 5, or even 6 chances. I read somewhere Julius Caesar’s opinion, “The chief penalty in not punishing wrongdoers is the discouragement of the law-abiding; because they say, “What is the point of continuing to be law-abiding, if crime pays?” ” And I thought across the two thousand years that separated us, that our eyes met. And he was one of the greatest civil administrators who has ever lived. In the family of course it is different.

But whether you are hoping to inaugurate the Kingdom of Heaven, or simply to help maintain a decent just society, what you need most in this world is not intellectual brilliance, nor ecclesiastical piety, but first and foremost valour.