Great King

“ So soon as they were brought in sight of the Great King, the Prince took those who had done well, and put a white robe on them; but those who went their own way when on the Home of Earth, He sent down to toil in deep dark mines till time shall be no more. ”

“ The great and the rich are assembled to see a king crowned—a monarch whose raiment is the work of men's hands, but who, in all his glory, is arrayed in purple less exquisite than that of a humble flower. ”

“ My kingship not only lacked the positive advantages with which youthful imagination (aided by the archbishop's pious hyperbole) had endowed it; it became in my eyes the great and fertile source of all my discomfort, the parent of every distasteful obligation, the ground on which all chosen pleasures were refused. It was ever "Kings can not do this," or "Kings must do that," and the "this" was always sweet, the "that" repellent; in Krak's hands monarchy became a cross between a treadmill and a strait-waistcoat. "What's the use of being a king?" ”

“ Now, there was a big talk all by signs, and the King said for the great man to come with them, and be one with them, for they loved his fair face—their forefathers were fair like him. He should have the noblest of their women for his wife, and be a prince among them. He would not go, so they drew away again and fought. A stone-axe brought the great man to the ground. ”

“ When the French governor took his leave of you, he advised you to look upon yourselves as the children of the King of Great Britain. The advice was good, I hope you will remember it for ever. The great King has warriors numerous as the trees of the forest, and stands in no need of your assistance; but he desires your friendship and alliance to render you happy. He loves peace and justice, but he will punish all murders and rebellion. ”

“ The Emperor presents no aspect of excess of any sort, but on the contrary appears like one conscious of his great responsibility and actuated by a calm conscientious resolve to fulfil its requirements. "What King so strong can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?" ”

“ The moral and intellectual qualities of the King, however insignificant in themselves, now became, from their unavoidable influence, an object of great interest and importance, and in the early part of his reign he acquired no small share of popularity. People liked a King whose habits presented such a striking contrast to those of his predecessor. ”

“ The rulers who begin the ascent of their thrones upon their knees rise high because their eyes are upon that Great White Throne which is the final seat of all authority and of all blessing.
Here then were the leading traits in that young man who became king! In his early life when he was nothing but a shepherd boy he showed fidelity in the ordinary duties of every-day life. He showed courage and high resolve in the presence of danger. He had a fine capacity for joyous and enduring friendship with his brother men. ”

“ We may probably say that no other man has made so great a difference to the history of the world, by his last will and testament, as did the King of Spain by that will which left all his monarchy to the grandson of him who already was so great as to be called the Grand Monarque. ”

“ but that, if he could prove himself superior to those vanities by his temperance, simplicity of life, and true greatness of mind, and could succeed in restoring equality among his fellow-countrymen, he would be honoured and renowned as a truly great king. ”

“ We are all obliged to recognize the First Cause of all things, and for that reason the King, my master, invites you, great Emperor, and all your people to accept these sentiments and maintain affectionate and brotherly relations with him. ”

“ “Kings cannot ennoble thee, thou good, great soul, for One who is higher than kings hath done that for thee; but a king can confirm thy nobility to men.” ”

“ I know the title of a King is a glorious title, but assure yourself that the shining glory of princely authority hath not so dazzled the eyes of our understanding, but that we well know and remember that we also are to yield an account of our actions before the great judge. To be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it is pleasant to them that bear it. ”

“ A strange day, this of my coronation, odd to pass through, to the highest degree illuminating in retrospect. I did not live to bastinado Krak; nor would I now had I the power. What they did was perhaps a little cruel, a little Styrian, as Victoria and I used covertly to say of such harsh measures; but how valuable a lesson on the state and fortune of kings! The King is one, the man another. The King is crowned, the man is lashed; they give us greatness in words: in fact, we are our servants' servants. ”

“ Some are in more honor and in more ease than others; some in less, some almost without, except the one that he loveth. So is it likewise with wisdom. Each one who wisheth it and who anxiously prayeth for it, he can come to it and abide in its household and live near it; yet some are nearer it, others farther from it; just so is every king's court: some dwell in cottages, some in halls, some on the threshing-floor, some in prison; and yet they all live by the favor of one lord, just as all men live under one sun, and by its light see what they see. ”

“ I will honor them just as a man should a worldly lord, and the others of whom thou didst formerly speak just as their masters, and as one should the king who is the King of all kings, and the Creator and Ruler of all creatures.
R. Now I hear that the Almighty God pleaseth thee better than Theodosius; and Christ, the Son of God, better than Honorius, the son of Theodosius. I blame thee not that thou lovest both, but I advise thee to love the higher lords more, for they know all that they wish and can perform all that they wish. ”

“ If they succeed in making out the noble game, They will win applause and augment enjoyment: Then slaves and money and tribute and taxes, I will send to him as far as I have the means; For a monarch is to be esteemed for his wisdom, Not for his treasure, or his men, or his lofty throne. But if the King and his counsellors are not able to do all this And their minds are not bright enough to comprehend it, He ought not to desire from us tribute or treasure, And his wise soul, alas! must come to grief; And when he seeth our minds and genius to be subtler than theirs. ”

“ He was a monarch now. Even his nurse, to whom, the moment he saw her, he had held out his hand, kissed it reverently, and called him ceremoniously “his Majesty the King.”
“A king must be always a king, I suppose,” said he half-sadly, when, the ceremonies over, he had been left to himself for just ten minutes, to put off his boy's clothes and be reattired in magnificent robes, before he was conveyed away from his tower to the royal palace. ”

“ I will transplant into my native land,
And turn these bond-serfs into glad-souled men;
Not o'er the souls of slaves will I bear rule.
KING.
Do naught in haste; but by the time be led!
Prince, ere we part, three lessons take from me,
And truly follow them when thou art king.
It is a king that gives them, old and tried,
And they may prove of profit to thy youth.
DEMETRIUS.
Oh, share thy wisdom with me! Thou hast won
The reverence of a free and mighty people;
What must I do to earn so fair a prize?
KING.
You come from a strange land,
Borne on the weapons of a foreign foe ”

“ No change ever came to them; and I think, at any day [Pg 119] throughout his long reign, the King would sooner have lost his crown than have lost sight of the Beautiful Mountains.
In course of time, when the little prince, his cousin, was grown into a tall young man, capable of all the duties of a man, his Majesty did one of the most extraordinary acts ever known in a sovereign beloved by his people and prosperous in his reign. ”

“ And again the righteous, after they are out of this world, shall recall very often both the good and the evil which they had in this world, and rejoice very much that they did not depart from their Lord's will, either in easy or in hidden things, while they were in this world. Just so some king in this world may have driven one of his favorites from him, or he may have been forced from the king against both of their wills; then hath he many torments and many mishaps in his exile, yet he may come to the same lord whom he before was with, and there be much more worshipful than he was. ”

“ Pleasures have succeeded [290] to difficulties, and I have met a monarch whom no words can describe—a King to whom all the creation is a slave, and to whom fortune is a vassal, whose hand distributes bounties, so that I know not whether it is the sea or a cloud. The sun has invested him with a crown, so that the world need not fear darkness. ”

“ And amongst other things there is this most invincible King, whose accomplishments and qualities are so many and excellent that I consider him to surpass all who ever wore a crown; and blessed and happy may this country call itself in having as its lord so worthy and eminent a sovereign; whose sway is more bland and gentle than the greatest liberty under any other. ”

“ And thus he cried, "May God grant long life to Henry, by the grace of God King of France and of England, our sovereign lord!"
"LONG LIVE THE KING!"
Then, when an infant ten months old had been proclaimed King over two of the greatest kingdoms in Europe, the sergeants-at-arms and ushers turned their maces, and shouted together, "Long live the King! long live the King!" ”

“ But no peace comes from such sovereignty, and no deep and vital joy. For the real King is not dead, and He is out and about, and our poor little monarchy is as the reign of the midge on a summer’s night. Our real kingship is in the acknowledgment of the King of kings. When we worship Him, and Him only, He will ask us to sit on His throne. ”

“ He who strives not only to visualize the outward life, but also to retrace the thoughts and experience the emotions of King Alfred, must by that very effort rise to a higher and better life. To enter into the conscious life of Alfred's age is to reconstruct for one's delectation and edification one of the most fruitful periods of the much underrated and slighted Middle Ages. ”

“ The king, a young and virtuous prince, has, I am persuaded, a pleasure in reflecting on the generous benevolence of the action in assisting an oppressed people, and proposes it as a part of the glory of his reign. ”

“ It may be put symbolically, and even mystically, by saying that they all bear the image of the King. And, though the most mystical, it is also the most practical summary of equality that all men bear the image of the King of Kings. ”

“ And the pathos becomes almost tragic as we contemplate this warrior-king, then forty years old, vowing to give half his means and time to God's service, patiently studying Latin books, and translating them 'sometimes word for word, sometimes according to the sense', but always adapting the thoughts and expressions to the needs of his unlettered subjects. ”

“ This solemnity, absolutely novel for the greater number of the present generation, offered an aspect at once mournful and imposing. A monarch so justly regretted, a king so truly Christian, coming to take his place among the glorious remains of the martyrs of his race and the bones of his ancestors,—profaned, scattered by the revolutionary tempest, but which he had been able again to gather,—was a grave subject of reflection, a spectacle touching in its purpose and majestic in the pomp with which it was surrounded. ”

“ At that name the agitated monarch recovered from a moment’s oblivion; he fixed his eyes earnestly upon her lovely figure, then lifted them to heaven, as if invoking blessings on her, and hurried from the grotto.
Occupied with contradictory feelings, the King reached his own apartment: to sleep was impossible; he walked up and down, watching the dawn of that day which was either to restore him to liberty, or to crush him with disappointment. ”

“ To Thee I call, whom everything loveth that can love, both those which know what they love, and those which know not what they love. Thou who hast shapen all creatures very good, without any evil—Thou who wilt not altogether show thyself openly to any but to them that are pure in heart, I call to Thee, O Lord, because Thou art the Father of truth and wisdom, of the true and highest life, and of the highest blessedness, and of the highest good, and of the highest brightness, and of the intelligible light ”

“ He would willingly hazard his life in defence of your title to the crown; and, if power be your object, will still show you how possible it is for a King of England, by the noblest means, to be the most absolute prince in Europe. You have no enemies, Sir, but those who persuade You to aim at power without right, and who think it flattery to tell You, that the character of King dissolves the natural relation between guilt and punishment. ”

“ The Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius. 6. The Soliloquies of St. Augustine.
The first fact that strikes us as to the kind of books King Alfred chose for the betterment of his people is that they are thoroughly imbued with the Christian spirit. Orosius was written at the suggestion of St. Augustine, to prove that Christianity had not injured the world. Boethius, it is now generally agreed, was himself not a Christian, though the Roman Church canonized him, but Alfred's rendering is made distinctly so. The very titles and authors of the other works speak for themselves. ”

“ The wicked, then, can neither do their friends nor themselves any good, because they were formerly, when they were in this world, of no aid either to themselves or to their friends who had passed away before them. But it shall be with them even as it is with men, who are in this world brought into the prison of some king and can see their friends all day and ask about them what they desire, albeit they can not be of any good to them, nor the prisoners to them; they have neither the wish nor the ability. ”