THE FIERY ORDEAL;
A JUDICIAL ANECDOTE.
Towards the end of the Greek Empire at Constantinople, a general, who was an object of suspicion to his master, was urged to undergo the fiery proof of the Ordeal by an archbishop, a subtle courtier. The ceremony was this; three days before the trial the patient’s arm was inclosed in a bag, and secured by the royal signet; he was expected to bear a red hot ball of iron three times, from the altar to the rails of the sanctuary, without artifice and injury. The general eluded the experiment with pleasantry. ‘I am a soldier,’ said he, ‘and will boldly enter the lists with my accusers; but a layman, a sinner like myself, is not endowed with the gift of miracles. Your piety, holy prelate, may deserve the interposition of heaven, and from your hands I will receive the fiery globe, the test of my innocence.’ The archbishop stared, the emperor smiled, and the general was pardoned.
POWER.
Power is no good quality by itself; it is the Power of doing good, alone, that is desirable to the wise. All vice is selfishness, and the meanest is that which is most contractedly selfish.
Great minds can reconcile sublimity to good-humour; in weak ones, it is generally coupled with severity and moroseness.
Sublime qualities men admire; they love the gentler virtues. When Wisdom would engage a heart, she wooes in a smile. What the austere man advises with his tongue his frown forbids.
The vulgar-rich call the poor the vulgar: let us learn to call things by their proper names; the rude and ungentle are the vulgar, whether, in fortune, they be poor or rich.
The truly poor and worthless are those who have not sense to perceive the superiority of internal merit to all foreign or outward accomplishments.