Part 15

And Morven was the first mortal of the North that made Religion the stepping stone to Power.

Of a surety Morven was a great man!

CONCLUSION

It was the last night of the old year, and the stars sat, each upon his ruby throne, and watched with sleepless eyes upon the world. The night was dark and troubled, the dread winds were abroad, and fast and frequent hurried the clouds beneath the thrones of the kings of night. But ever and anon fiery meteors flashed along the depths of heaven, and were again swallowed up in the graves of darkness.

And far below his brethren, and with a lurid haze around his orb, sat the discontented star that had watched over the hunters of the North. And on the lowest abyss of space there was spread a thick and mighty gloom, from which, as from a caldron, rose columns of wreathing smoke; and still, when the great winds rested for an instant on their paths, voices of woe and laughter, mingled with shrieks, were heard booming from the abyss to the upper air.

And now, in the middest night, a vast figure rose slowly from the abyss, and its wings threw blackness over the world. High upward to the throne of the discontented star sailed the fearful shape, and the star trembled on his throne when the form stood before him face to face. And the shape said: “Hail, brother!--all hail!”

“I know thee not,” answered the star: “thou art not the archangel that visitests the kings of night.”

And the shape laughed loud. “I am the fallen star of the morning.--I am Lucifer, thy brother. Hast thou not, O sullen king, served me and mine? and hast thou not wrested the earth from thy Lord who sittest above and given it to me by darkening the souls of men with the religion of fear? Wherefore come, brother, come;--thou hast a throne prepared beside my own in the fiery gloom. Come.--The heavens are no more for thee.” Then the star rose from his throne, and descended to the side of Lucifer. For ever hath the spirit of discontent had sympathy with the soul of pride.

And slowly they sank down to the gulf of gloom. It was the first night of the new year, and the stars sat each on his ruby throne, and watched with sleepless eyes upon the world. But sorrow dimmed the bright faces of the kings of night, for they mourned in silence and in fear for a fallen brother.

And the gates of the heaven of heavens flew open with a golden sound, and the swift archangel fled down on his silent wings; and the archangel gave to each of the stars, as before, the message of his Lord; and to each star was his appointed charge.

And when the heraldry seemed done, there came a laugh from the abyss of gloom, and half way from the gulf rose the lurid shape of Lucifer, the fiend.

“Thou countest thy flock ill, O radiant shepherd. Behold! one star is missing from the three thousand and ten.”

“Back to thy gulf, false Lucifer!--the throne of thy brother hath been filled.”

And lo! as the archangel spake, the stars beheld a young and all lustrous stranger on the throne of the erring star; and his face was so soft to look upon, that the dimmest of human eyes might have gazed upon its splendor unabashed; but the dark fiend alone was dazzled by its lustre, and, with a yell that shook the flaming pillars of the universe, he plunged backwards into the gloom.

Then, far and sweet from the arch unseen, came forth the voice of God:

“Behold! on the throne of the discontented star sits the star of hope; and he that breathed into mankind the Religion of Fear hath a successor in him who shall teach earth the Religion of Love.”

And evermore the Star of Fear dwells with Lucifer, and the Star of Love keeps vigil in heaven.

ON THE ORIGIN OF EVIL

By Lord Brougham

A DISSERTATION ON THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

The question which has more than, any other harassed metaphysical reasoners, but especially theologians, and upon which it is probable that no very satisfactory conclusion will ever be reached by the human faculties, is the Origin and Sufferance of Evil.

Its existence being always assumed, philosophers have formed various theories for explaining it, but they have always drawn very different inferences from it.

The ancient Epicureans argued against the existence of the Deity, because they held that the existence of Evil either proved him to be limited in power or of a malignant nature; either of which imperfections is inconsistent with the first notions of a divine being.

In this kind of reasoning they have been followed both by the atheists and sceptics of later times.

Bayle regarded the subject of evil as one of the great arsenals from whence his weapons were to be chiefly drawn. None of the articles in his famous Dictionary are more labored than those in which he treats of this subject. Monichian, and still more Paulician, almost assume the appearance of formal treatises upon the question; and both Marchionite and Zoroaster treat of the same subject. All these articles are of considerable value; they contain the greater part of the learning upon the question; and they are distinguished by the acuteness of reasoning which was the other characteristic of their celebrated author.

Those ancient philosophers who did not agree with Epicurus in arguing from the existence of evil against the existence of a providence that superintended and influenced the destinies of the world, were put to no little difficulty in accounting for the fact which they did not deny, and yet maintaining the power of a divine ruler. The doctrine of a double principle, or of two divine beings of opposite natures, one beneficent, the other mischievous, was the solution which one class of reasoners deemed satisfactory, and to which they held themselves driven by the phenomena of the universe.

Others unable to deny, the existence of things which men denominate evil, both physical and moral, explain them in a different way. They maintained that physical evil only obtains the name from our imperfect and vicious or feeble dispositions; that to a wise man there is no such thing; that we may rise superior to all such groveling notions as make us dread or repine at any events which can befall the body; that pain, sickness, loss of fortune or of reputation, exile, death itself, are only accounted ills by a weak and pampered mind; that if we find the world tiresome, or woeful, or displeasing, we may at any moment quit it; and that therefore we have no right whatever to call any suffering connected with existence on earth an evil, because almost all sufferings can be borne by a patient and firm mind; since if the situation we are placed in becomes either intolerable, or upon the whole more painful than agreeable, it is our own fault that we remain in it.

But these philosophers took a further view of the question which especially applied to moral evil. They considered that nothing could be more groundless than to suppose that if there were no evil there could be any good in the world; and they illustrated this position by asking how we could know anything of temperance, fortitude or justice, unless there were such things as excess, cowardice and injustice.