Nor death of him that died, nor adverse gods,
Nor the Fates themselves; 'twas something mightier yet,
And secreter in the great night, that slew me.”
And thus, surrounded by his warriors and his generals, with success within his grasp, but that grasp nerveless, his last moments troubled with awful visions and ill dreams, resentful to the last against what slew him, in doubt and in fear, in youth and glory and empire, in the fatality of success, staring with strained eyes into the dread void beyond that no ray of faith illumines, he whose nod was life or death to nations, Alexander, the god, passes away and dies—of a little slow fever that has entered and claimed for its own the clay of which he was made.
Mr. de Vere has written at once a magnificent poem and a powerful drama. We have devoted our attention in both instances to the chief characters, and thus many scenes and personages in Alexander the Great on which in reading we have dwelt with much pleasure and admiration must pass unnoticed. The author, if we may say so, has surprised us by the strength and finish of this work. The action of the piece is rapid; the characters, small and great, rounded and full; the scenes most varied and dramatically set. The clew to the play we take to be that old whisper which first allured our parents from their allegiance, and tempts forever the race of man: Ye shall be as gods. The whisper runs through the piece from the first line to the last, and lends to it a purpose and a plan of its own. The dramatist has taken the man who in human history came the nearest to exemplifying its truth to prove its utter and miserable falsehood, and to read with a new force the old and eternal command that alone can order the life of man wisely and well: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”
When he died, Alexander was nearly thirty-three. With him really, though remnants lingered after him, his scheme and his empire passed away; and when to-day we look for what is left of the world's conqueror, of Alexander the god, we must search in musty tomes and grope in desert sands. Nothing is left of him, save some words and histories; and even were they lost also, and his very memory blotted out with them, the world to-day would in reality be little or none the loser.
Some centuries later there died Another at the age of thirty-three. He came into life silently; he went out of life ignominiously. He led no army; he had no following of any note; he was the son of a carpenter, and born of a despised race. He was born, he lived, he died, in poverty, sorrow, and suffering, a social outcast even from his own people. The last three years of his life he spent in preaching in and about Jerusalem. His doctrines were strange and startling. They were utterly subversive of all human glory and greatness. Like Alexander, he proclaimed himself divine, and claimed to be the Son of God. Like Alexander, he too died, but a death of ignominy. Before his name had spread far beyond Jerusalem, men rose up, Jew and Gentile, king and priest, church and state, together hanged him on a tree, nailed him there, tortured and slew him, and when he was dead sealed up the tomb in which he was buried. And there, humanly speaking, was an end to him and his.
To the world what had he left? A memory—nothing more. Men said that he had wrought wonders, that virtues flowed out of him, that [pg 359] his hands rained mercies, that the blind saw, the lame walked, the lepers were cleansed, the very dead rose again. Idle rumors! like that other of his bursting the tomb and rising again, walking in the flesh and ascending into the heaven from which he said he had come. And this was “the Expected of the nations,” “the Prince of Peace,” who was to accomplish what the high-priest warned Alexander was not for him, with all his power, to accomplish—to unite all the nations under one yoke. A likely prospect with the material he had left!
He left behind him no empire, no record, not a line of writing. He left a few words, a few maxims, a few rules of life, a few prayers, a few promises, a few men who timidly believed in him, a few commands. The world, its belief and non-belief alike, its customs, maxims, tendencies, he condemned as wrong. He commanded it to remodel itself according to the few rules he had left—rules singularly comprehensive, simple, and clear: to believe in him, to obey him as the son of God and God, to believe and obey those, and those only, whom he sent forth in his name, armed with the powers he gave them, fighting with the weapon of the cross. And what is the result? Who is the conqueror of the world now? Jesus Christ, in whose name every knee shall bow, or Alexander the Great? Here is a mystery surely that men should ponder. What shall explain the victory over the world, over sin, and over death, of Him whom they nailed to the tree nineteen centuries ago? Nothing but the words of Peter—“Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.” Thou art he that was to come, and we look for no other. “And he was clothed with a garment sprinkled with blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And he hath on his garment and on his thigh written King of kings and Lord of lords.”