"Him the almighty Power
Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition: there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms."
An apostle, admonishing a novice, bids him beware of pride, "lest he fall into the condemnation of the devil." Here presumptuous arrogance and haughtiness of spirit are specified as the root and source of the great transgression. Shakespeare takes up this thought:—
"Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition.
By that sin fell the angels: how can man, then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by't?"
And Milton repeats it in the magnificent lines:—
"What time his pride
Had cast him out of heaven, with all his host
Of rebel angels; by whose aid, aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equalled the Most High,
If He opposed; and, with ambitious aim,
Against the throne and monarchy of God
Raised impious war in heaven, and battle proud,
With vain attempt."
Our Savior, also, sanctions this idea in the text. Joining His disciples again, after their brief separation, He finds them elated and exultant. They rejoiced, and, apparently, not with modesty, that devils were subject unto them, and that they could exorcize them at their pleasure. While they acknowledged that their power was due to the influence of His name, they evidently thought more of themselves than of Him. They were given to unseemly glorifying and self-satisfaction, and were met by the Master's words—half warning, half rebuke—"I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven." He thus identifies their pride with that evil spirit which led to angelic ruin, and seeks to banish it from their hearts: "Rejoice not that the demons are subject unto you, but, rather, rejoice because your names are written in heaven." Rejoice not on account of privilege and power, but on account of grace; for the memory of grace must promote humility, as it will recall the guilt of which it is the remedy.
We have, here, a lesson for all ages and for all classes of society—a lesson continually enforced by Scripture, and illustrated by history. It deals with the insanity of pride and the senselessness of egotism. It reminds us, by repeated examples, of the temptations to self-inflation, and of the perils which assail its indulgence. "Ye shall be as gods," was the smiling, sarcastic allurement which beguiled our first parents to their ruin. They thought that before them rose an eminence which the foot of creaturehood had never trodden; that from its height the adventurous climber would rival Deity in the sweep of his knowledge and the depth of his joy. Elated and dazzled by the prospect, they dared tread through sin to its attainment, vainly dreaming that wrong-doing would lead to a purer paradise and to a loftier throne. One step, and only one, in the gratification of their desires, converted their enchanting mountain into a yawning gulf, and in its horrid wastes of darkness and of sorrow their high-blown pride was shamed and smothered. The haughty king walked on the terrace heights of Babylon, and, beneath the calm splendor of an Assyrian sky, voiced the complacent feeling which dulled his sense of dependence upon God—as the perfumes of the East lull into waking-slumber the faculties of the soul. Thus ran his self-glorifying soliloquy: "Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?" Alas for the weakness of the royal egotist! In an hour his boasting was at an end, and, reduced by the chastening judgment of the Almighty to the level of the brute creation, he was compelled to learn that "those who walk in pride the King of heaven is able to abase." Similar the lesson taught us by the overthrow of Belshazzar when, congratulating himself on the stability of his throne, and in his excess of arrogance, he insulted the sacred vessels which his father had plundered from the temple at Jerusalem. I say taught us, for the foolhardy braggart was past learning anything himself. Like the yet more silly Herod, who drank in the adulation of the mob as he sat shimmering in his silver robe and slimed his speech from his serpent-tongue, he was too inflated and bloated with vanity to be corrected by wholesome discipline. Both of these rulers were too self-satisfied to be reproved, and God's exterminating indignation overtook them. Like empty bubbles, nothing could be done with them, and hence the breath of the Almighty burst and dispersed their glittering worthlessness. Pope John XXI., according to Dean Milman, is another conspicuous monument of this folly. "Contemplating," writes the historian, "with too much pride the work of his own hands"—the splendid palace of Viterbo—"at that instant the avenging roof came down, on his head." And Shakespeare has immortalized the pathetic doom which awaits the proud man, who, confident in his own importance and in the magnitude of his destiny, is swallowed up in schemes and plans for his personal aggrandizement and power. Wolsey goes too far in his self-seeking, is betrayed by his excess of statecraft, and, being publicly disgraced, laments, when too late, his selfish folly:—
"I have ventured,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
These many summers on a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride
At length broke under me; and now has left me,
Weary, and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me."
It is not difficult to discern the fatal effects of this spirit in the lives of the great and mighty; but we are frequently blind to its pernicious influence on the lowly and weak. We do not realize, as we ought, that the differences between men lie mainly in their position, not in their experiences and dangers. The leaders of society are merely actors, exhibiting on the public stage of history what is common to mankind at large. However insignificant we may be, and however obscure our station, our inner life is not far removed from that of the exalted personages who draw to themselves the attention of the world. The poorest man has his ambitions, his struggles and his reverses; and the first may take as deep a hold upon his heart, and the second call forth as much cunning or wisdom to confront, and the last as much bitterness to endure, as are found in the vicissitudes of a Richelieu or a Napoleon. The peasant's daughter, in her narrow circle, feels as keenly the disappointment of her hopes, and mourns as intensely the betrayal of her confidence, or the rude ending of her day-dreams, as either queen or princess, as either Katharine of England or Josephine of France. We do wrong to separate, as widely as we do in our thoughts, ranks and conditions of society. The palace and the hovel are nearer to each other than we usually think; and what passes beneath the fretted ceiling of the one, and the thatched roof of the other, is divided by the shadowy line of mere externalities. And so it happens that the fall of an angel may be pertinent to the state of a fisherman-disciple, and the fall of a prime minister or ruler have its message of warning for the tradesman and mechanic.
Indeed, it will generally be found that the failures of life, and the worse than failures, are mainly due to the same cause which emptied heavenly thrones of their angelic occupants. What is it, let me ask, that comes into clearer prominence as the Washington tragedy[1] is being investigated and scrutinized? Is it not that a diseased egotism, or perhaps it would be more correct to say, a stalwart egotism, robbed this country of its ruler, committed "most sacrilegious murder," and "broke ope"