Books of Kings

“ Heraldry is full of colour and imagery, and attracts the fancy like a "book of pictures." The Kings at Arms are romantic personages, really crowned, and have as mystic appellations as the kings of an old tale—Garter, Clarencieux, and Norroy. ”

“ If there be any such distinct traditions, even though they are few or in a late stage of development, they are of high value, for they may be as worthy of consideration as the form in Kings. Moreover a slight variation in a tradition may occasionally suffice to indicate the existence of a different standpoint towards an important topic or period in the history. ”

“ On gilded throne, with rubied diadem,
Caparisoned and guarded round, till death
Doth stretch them 'neath some gorgeous canopy,
Yet leave no foot-prints in the realm of mind—
Call them not kings—they are but crowned men. ”

“ Three Kings from the far-off East, bearing rich and costly presents.
They bow down low to the ground, and offer rare gifts: bright gold to the Infant King; sweet frankincense to God, who has come on earth; bitter myrrh to the Son of Man, who is to die for men. ”

“ So, led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men from Orient land,
The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger,
In all our trials born to be our friend;
He knows our need, To our weakness no stranger! ”

“ Kings are commonly surrounded by still thicker fogs, collected around them by men of intriguing character, and faithless Ministers--all, of every class, unite in endeavouring to make things appear to Kings in any light but the true one. ”

“ Kings, of their own free will, leave the throne and hasten to arms; in their elevated place they not seldom curse their lives. No matter how boyárs grow stout, they also pale in their good fortune, like their lowest slave. ”

“ Espous’d of princes:—in whose days of mirth,
Kings sought her favor, from the ends of earth.
Whose armies, like thick clouds, around her throne
Waited, to make her royal mandates known:
And ships, shadow’d the sea—floating sublime
Like ocean demons:—linking clime to clime,
And land to land, in one vast, boundless sway,
They bade the world their lofty queen obey:
And at her feet laid down the gather’d spoil,
For which an hundred realms were doom’d to toil. ”

“ When we emerged from the river on the other bank, a monarch, who at noon had seventeen thousand artisans in his establishments, was mounted upon a wretched spavined horse, with both hishead and feet bare. Permanence belongs to God alone, the King of Kings. ”

“ Alike in joy and sorrow bring
Thy mighty aid, God save the King!
4⁠And oh! when earthly thrones decay,
And earthly kingdoms fade away,
Grant him a throne in worlds on high,
A Crown of immortality. ⁠Amen. ”

“ These ten kings, however, desolate her: the will at this time acts in them, not in the beast—they are the prominent and existing actors, that they may give their power to the beast, whose final character and end we have already seen. ”

“ Where our Kings are crowned, their ancestors lie interred, and they must walk over their grandsires to take the crown. There is an acre sown with royal seed, the copy of the greatest change, from rich to naked, from ceiled roofs to arched coffins, from living like gods to die like men. There the warlike and the peaceful, the fortunate and the miserable, the beloved and despised princes mingle their dust and pay down their symbol of mortality, and tell all the world that when we die our ashes shall be equal to Kings, and our accounts easier, and our pains for our sins shall be less. ”

“ Meanwhile, I see some who walk round the thrones; of these some whisper somewhat into the ears of their master by means of these tubes; others place vari-coloured spectacles before his eyes; others burn incense before his nose; others first put his feet closer together, and then again separate them; others adorn and strengthen his throne. Seeing this, I ask: "Who are these? and what do they?" The interpreter answered: "They are the privy councillors who instruct the kings and great lords." ”

“ Revelation 17:12 to be ten kings, and the whole vision is of the last form of Gentile world-power, a confederated ten-kingdom empire covering the sphere of authority of ancient Rome. Revelation 13:1-3 refers to the ten-kingdom empire ”

“ But it is quite possible that the uncertainty as to their fathers may not have arisen till long after the death of the kings, when their figures began to melt away into the cloudland of fable, assuming fantastic shapes and gorgeous colouring as they passed from earth to heaven. ”

“ The fact that the four leaders of the expedition to Canaan are all referred to as "kings" in the Biblical narrative need not present any difficulty. Princes and other subject rulers who governed under an overlord might be and, as a matter of fact, were referred to as kings. "I am a king, son of a king", an unidentified monarch recorded on one of the two tablets just referred to. ”

“ The civil laws of the emperors, whether pagan or Christian, those of the kings of France, both ancient and modern, jurisconsult, physicians, historians both sacred and profane, concur in maintaining this truth. In all kinds of writers we may remark an infinity of stories of magic, spells and sorcery. ”

“ And in the same age arose another King of Solomon's descendants, whose palace was the shop of the carpenter and His throne the cross, and whose mortal body was the true Temple of the Supreme—that King whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and whose dominion endureth throughout all ages. ”

“ Such stories indicate that the supply of kings may have been maintained by compelling men to accept the fatal sovereignty. Tales of the foregoing sort might be dismissed as fictions designed to amuse a leisure hour, were it not for their remarkable agreement with beliefs and customs which, as we have seen, still exist, or are known to have existed in former times. ”

“ Kings ought never to be seen upon the stage. In the abstract, they are very disagreeable characters: it is only while living that they are ‘the best of kings.’ It is their power, their splendour, it is the apprehension of the personal consequences of their favour or their hatred that dazzles the imagination and suspends the judgment of their 306favourites or their vassals; but death cancels the bond of allegiance and of interest; and seen as they were, their power and their pretensions look monstrous and ridiculous. ”

“ On the King's return to White-hall, after his Summer's Progress, 1684. SONG. Set by Mr. Henry Purcell.
From those serene and rapturous joys
A country life alone can give,
Exempt from tumult and from noise,
Where Kings forget the troubles of their reigns,
And are almost as happy as their humble swains,
By feeling that they live:
Behold th' indulgent Prince is come
To view the conquests of His mercy shown
To the new Proselytes of His mighty town,
10And men and angels bid Him welcome home. ”

“ King of kings upon His throne, will have the senses of their spiritual bodies expanded in capacity beyond what we can now form the slightest conception of; and as all then will be enjoyment of the most exquisite kind, and absolutely unalloyed by interruption or satiety,—the eye will at length be satisfied with seeing, and the ear be satisfied with hearing. ”

“ The kings are not all of equal power or importance; but in this respect there have been many changes, even during the Feegeean historical period,—which extends back only to the beginning of the present century. ”

“ The dynasties of kings are growing dusty—much of their power is but a legend; the Church is shrinking in her garments. The desires of this people are slow to move, but deeply rooted and strong; and so far as they have moved forward, they have never moved back. ”

“ Press on in the struggle to scatter the dread foe, the King of Kings aids you for His desire is towards you. He Himself strengthens your soul against Satan; He Himself will grant the glory of His kingdom after victory. Delights await you, riches are destined for you, [Pg 254] the court of heaven proffers you countless joys. Christ prepares espousals wondrous in delights, and you may look for this prince if you preserve your chastity. ”

“ We see, in Scripture, that bad kings were not interred in the monuments of their ancestors. This practice suggested to princes, that if their majesty placed them out of the reach of men's judgment while they were alive, they would at last be liable to it when death should reduce them to a level with their subjects. ”

“ In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology, there were no Kings; the consequence of which was, there were no wars; it is the pride of Kings which throws mankind into confusion. ”

“ As experience accumulates, and ideas of causation grow more precise, kings lose their supernatural attributes; and, instead of God-king, become God-descended king, God-appointed king, the Lord's anointed, the vicegerent of heaven, ruler reigning by Divine right. ”

“ They had in their service, also, artisans, oarsmen, and traffickers. The centers of industry were the numerous cities. Here the nobles had their mansions, and the gods their temples with retinues of priests. But the Nomes had each its particular jurisdiction. The traces of two original communities are preserved in the mythological legends and in the titles of the kings. The oldest inscriptions discover to us a systematic organization of the state. The king is supreme: under him are the rulers of the two halves of the kingdom. He creates the army, and appoints its generals. ”

“ Not only were the more powerful barons, counts, and dukes, among whom the land was parcelled out, subject to the kings only at their good pleasure, but the very people over whom they directly ruled were still dimly conscious of the fact that they sprang from different races. ”

“ The which kingdoms are governed by five kings, that is, Lucifer in the Orient, Belzebub in Septentrio, Belial in Meredie, Ascheroth in the Occident, and Phlegeton in the midst of them all; whose rules and dominions have no end until the day of doom; and thus far, Faustus, hast thou heard of our rule and kingdom. ”

“ They were Thirteen unknown kings,—but true kings, more than ordinary kings and judges and executioners,—men who, having made themselves wings to roam through society from depth to height, disdained to be anything in the social sphere because they could be all. ”

“ The peculiar features of the stone-kingdom make it interesting to ascertain what kingdom, monarchy, and people stand for p. 78it; for such kingdom, though small at the beginning, is to grow, prosper, and continue to the end of time. Guided by the Scriptures and history, let us look for these four earthly monarchies; and the better to accomplish our task, let us stretch the giant figure on his back; then his head of gold will rest in Babylon, his silver breast and arms will take in Media and Persia, his belly and thighs will take in Greece, and his legs and feet will take in Rome. ”

“ Kings are to be represented in war and danger, where, by that very means, they appear as the first, because they determine and share the fate of the very least, and thus become much more interesting than the gods themselves, who, when they have once determined the fates, withdraw from all participation in them. ”

“ Some say that the four kings represent those famous champions of antiquity—David, Alexander, Julius Caesar, and Charlemagne; and that the four queens, Argine, Pallas, Esther, and Judith, are the respective symbols of majesty, wisdom, piety, and fortitude; and there can be no doubt, if you look attentively on the queens of a pack of cards, you will easily discern the appropriate expressions of all these attributes in the faces of the grotesque ladies therein depicted. The valets, or attendants, whom we call knaves, are not necessarily 'rascals,' but simply servants royal ”

“ Kings are like stars; they rise and set; they have / The worship of the world, but no repose. Shelley.
Kings are said to have long arms; but every man should have long arms, and should pluck his living, his instruments, his power, and his knowing from the sun, moon, and stars. ”

“ Kings could not play at. It is rather singular that, in our days, at least, though monarchs occasionally lose their crowns in these games of hazard, they rarely part with their heads at the same time. ”

“ In these northern maskers we see kings, whose dress of bark and leaves, along with the hut of green boughs and the [pg 213] fir-trees under which they hold their court, proclaim them unmistakably as, like their Italian counterpart, Kings of the Wood. Like him they die a violent death, but like him they may escape from it for a time by their bodily strength and agility; for in several of these northern customs the flight and pursuit of the king is a prominent part of the ceremony, and in one case at least if the king can outrun his pursuers he retains his life and his office for another year. ”

“ Kings are not born but made. By a marvellous process of mythopoiesis the monarch is manufactured to suit the national need, and from the most unpromising materials prodigies of goodness and genius are created, or, in the case of female sovereigns, paragons of beauty. ”

“ I will render the sense of it into English as near as I can; however, the Latin lies before every man to translate it for himself. “From hence-forward the French Kings degenerating from the valour and learning which they used to have, the power of the kingdom was administered by the masters of the palace, the Kings themselves being upon the matter only titular ”

“ I beheld, till thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days sat: his garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like unto clean wool; his throne like flames of fire; the wheels of it like a burning fire. ”

“ Giving himself up to the play of his imagination, the king seemed to hear the onrushing and receding of the tides of human destiny through the centuries, now holding high, then sweeping to their fall, the splendors of earth's thrones and dynasties. ”