Lucifer match

“ Another phenomenon, still more strikingly modern, was a package of lucifer matches, which, in old times, would have been thought actually to borrow their instantaneous flame from the nether fires of Tophet. ”

“ It is very difficult to point out the exact cause or causes which finally culminated in the Lucifer rebellion. We are certain of only one thing, and that is: Whatever these first beginnings were, they had their origin in Lucifer's mind. There must have been a pride of self that nourished itself to the point of self-deception, so that Lucifer for a time really persuaded himself that his contemplation of rebellion was actually for the good of the system, if not of the universe. ”

“ The archangel Lucifer rebels against the Almighty, and gathers to his banner an immense company of the heavenly hosts, of angels and flaming cherubim. A stupendous three days' battle follows between rebel and loyal legions, the issue being in doubt until the Son goes forth in his chariot of victory. Lucifer and his rebels are defeated, and are hurled over the ramparts of Heaven. Down, down through Chaos they fall "nine times the space that measures day and night," until they reach the hollow vaults of Hell. ”

“ Lucifer, the Morning Star, the splendid and the bright!
Through ages upon ages, they have cursed him day on day,
But fearless and unconquered he has held them all at bay;
Forever and forever he has faced them in the fight—
Lucifer, the Morning Star, the splendid and the bright!
Hail to the first of rebels! To the chieftain, strong and brave,
Who sounded first the bugle-call of freedom to the slave!
Who never yet has faltered through time's long and dreary flight—
Lucifer, the Morning Star, the splendid and the bright! ”

“ As he stood on tip-toe on the altar and passed his torch along the wall, the mighty ranks of the fallen angels, in headlong flight before the thunderbolts of heaven, seemed to emerge from the darkness, with the awful form of Lucifer in the extreme rear reluctantly yielding even to Omnipotence itself, while blasting lightnings played about his brow and eyes, that flashed with the fires of inextinguishable fury. On first casting his eyes over his picture, a feeling of self-complacency and pride stole over the soul of the artist. ”

“ Why was he beaten out of heaven? Because he was less brave than God? less proud? less aspiring? No! A thousand times no! God was more powerful, as he said, Whom thunder hath made greater. But Lucifer was a free spirit. ”

“ Lucifer had rooks, knights, and, of course, bishops.
It was but natural under such circumstances that Man should be in no great hurry to move. Lucifer grew impatient.
“It is a pity,” said he at last, “that we did not fix some period within which the player must move, or resign.”
“Oh, Lucifer,” returned the young man, in heart-rending accents, “it is not the impending loss of my soul that thus unmans me, but the loss of my betrothed. When I think of the grief of the Lady Adeliza, the paragon of terrestrial loveliness!” Tears choked his utterance; Lucifer was touched. ”

“ Lucifer adopts this disdainful suggestion, and, great magician as he is, exclaims—
"A golden palace let be raised on high,
To imitate—no, to outshine the sky!
All mines are ours, and gold above the rest;
Let this be done, and quick as 'twas exprest."
"A palace rises, where sit as in council, Lucifer, Asmoday, Moloch, Belial, Beelzebub, and Satan." Who he may be, deuce take us if we can tell. Up to the very moment of his making his appearance, we in our simple faith had believed Lucifer and Satan to be one devil—nay, the devil. ”

“ In the following narrative, Lucifer is not Satan, King of Evil, who in the beginning led the rebels from Heaven, establishing the underworld.
Lucifer is here taken as a character appearing much later, the first singing creature weary of established ways in music, moved with the lust of wandering. He finds the open road between the stars too lonely. He wanders to the kingdom of Satan, there to sing a song that so moves demons and angels that he is, at its climax, momentary emperor of Hell and Heaven, and the flame kindled of the tears of the demons devastates the golden streets. ”

“ But Lucifer perceiving his thought, spake to him, "My Faustus, how likest thou this crew of mine?"
Quoth Faustus, "Why came you not in another manner of shape?"
Lucifer replied: "We cannot change our hellish form, we have showed ourselves here as we are there; yet can we blind men's eyes in such sort, that when we will, we appear unto them as if we were men or angels of light, although our dwelling be in darkness." ”

“ When conscious, self-asserting, it becomes (as power working for its own sake, unwilling to acknowledge love for its superior, must) the devil. That is the legend of Lucifer, the star that would not own its centre. Yet, while it is unconscious, it is not devilish, only dæmoniac. In nature, we trace it in all volcanic workings, in a boding position of lights, in whispers of the wind, which has no pedigree; in deceitful invitations of the water, in the sullen rock, which never shall find a voice, and in the shapes of all those beings who go about seeking what they may devour. ”

“ Is it he who carries the light and yet blinds feeble souls? The answer is yes, unquestionably; for traditions are full of divine disclosures and inspirations. “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light,” says St. Paul. And Christ Himself said: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” So also the prophet Isaiah: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning.” [Pg 12] Lucifer is then a fallen star—a meteor which is on fire always, which burns when it enlightens no longer. But is this Lucifer a person or a force, an angel or a strayed thunderbolt? ”

“ But the warning, given in infinite love and mercy, only aroused a spirit of resistance. Lucifer allowed jealousy of Christ to prevail, and he became the more determined.
Pride in his own glory nourished the desire for supremacy. The high honors conferred upon Lucifer were not appreciated as the gift of God, and called forth no gratitude to the Creator. He gloried in his brightness and exaltation, and aspired to be equal with God. He was beloved and reverenced by the heavenly host. Angels delighted to execute his commands, and he was clothed with wisdom and glory above them all. ”

“ Iahveh, on his mountain, was jealous of Lucifer. You both know it: angels like unto men feel love and hatred quicken within them. Capable, at times, of generous resolves, they too often follow their own interests and yield to fear. Then, as now, they showed themselves, for the most part, incapable of lofty thoughts, and in the fear of the Lord lay their sole virtue. Lucifer, who held vile things in proud disdain, despised this rabble of commonplace spirits for ever wallowing in a life of feasts and pleasure. ”

“ The clouds roll together; more threateningly, more heavily they impend; the light that glows from the towers and battlements of Heaven grows tarnished; the seditious angels gradually lose their lustre; the thunder approaches with dull rumblings; one moment it is stayed, even at the point of outbursting, where Rafael, "oppressed and wan," throws himself appealingly on Lucifer's neck; then it precipitates itself in a terrible storm of strife between desperate rage and the powers above. ”

“ I saw some leaping up, a living fire of rage. “Every tale is fair till the other side be told,” quoth the devil, “I hope Lucifer will not allow one of the earth-born race of Adam to contend with me, who am an angel of far superior kind and stock.” “His punishment is certain,” said Lucifer, “but do thou, sirrah, give clear and ready answer to these charges; or by hopeless Hell I will—.” “I have led hither,” said he, “many a soul since Satan was in the Garden of Eden, and I ought to understand my business, better than this upstart accuser.” ”

“ Material circumstance and physical environment cannot thwart their design. It is this ennobling consciousness of intellectual power, supplemented by unconquerable and irresistible will, that makes the magnificence of the personality of Lucifer. Like Milton's Satan, he is, we feel, most near a god when he is most a devil.
Lucifer, like Macbeth, is not influenced all at once. With a god-like circumspection, he first weighs every atom of probability. However, when the die is cast and the line of rebellion has once been crossed, he fights to the last ditch. ”

“ This moral deterioration showed itself as a radical part of this system in the so-called Luciferians or devil worshippers, whose dualism, like that of the Euchites and Bogomils (§ 71) , led to the adoption of two Sons of God. Lucifer the elder, wrongly driven from heaven, is the creator and lord of this earthly world, and hence alone worshipped in it. His expulsion (Isa. xiv. 12) is carried out by the younger son, Michael, who will, however, on this account, whenever Lucifer regains heaven, be sent with all his company into eternal punishment. ”

“ Naturally the Demons hate us painters, who depict them under hideous shapes, in contrast with the Angels we represent in glory, an aureole about their brows and waving wings of dazzling splendour. The unhappy boy is beset with devils; I can count at least a thousand around his pallet. No doubt he has angered Lucifer himself, by drawing some horrible picture of him. 'Tis only too likely these ten thousand imps here will leap upon him and carry him off alive to Hell. ”

“ As soon as darkness descended upon the earth, Lucifer, if absent before, invariably alighted with it, and stood beside his victim, who clapping his hands upon his eyes, would fly with a howl or a shriek towards the habitations of men.
At length he became convinced that his last hour drew near; and he blessed God that his struggle was about to terminate. As soon as this idea took possession of his mind, he grew a little more tranquil; and, excepting when he thought of Beatrice, awaited the final hour with a kind of satisfaction. ”

“ We are here in this wicked world, a world shrouded in darkness, principally led, directed, governed, and controlled, from first to last, by the power of our common foe—him who was opposed to Jesus Christ and to his kingdom—the son of the morning—the devil. Lucifer has almost the entire control over the whole earth, rules and governs the children of men and leads them on to destruction. He has millions and millions of agents; they are in every place, the air is full of them and the earth is full of them. ”

“ On every side the infernal chief is surrounded by his enemies. They try to overpower him with mere numbers. He parries every stroke, or breaks their force upon his shield. He then waves his battle-axe aloft to fell God's glowing banner, when Michael, clad in glittering armor, "like a god amid a ring of suns," suddenly confronts him.
The Archangel sternly calls upon the rebel Prince to surrender. But Lucifer, unmoved, three times with his war-axe strives to cleave the diamond shield of Michael, wherein blazed God's most holy name. ”

“ That primary cause of the persecution of the Christians is to be found in the bitter hatred of that dark spirit who in heaven, before he fell from his high estate, was known under the splendid appellation of "The Light Bearer," "Lucifer," "Son of the Morning," as high in favor as in station, before his sin of rebellion against the Father-God. [49]
Beyond the mere fact that he impiously did rebel in heaven against God, and that he was impelled thereto by a vaulting ambition which overleaped itself, the Hebrew scriptures give us little information concerning Lucifer. ”

“ His confidence, however, proves to be but the fiat of his damnation.
"There is no fiercer hell than the failure in a great undertaking." Into this hell Lucifer was forever thrust. Yet he is allowed one brief moment of happiness; it is where he proclaims himself a god, and is worshipped by his followers.
Lucifer is the prince of thinkers, and a monarch among actors. His is the intellect to plan and to conceive, and the will to execute; and will is above all the one quality emphasized. As much as he is in this respect supereminent, so much greater the degree of his guilt. ”

“ It is impossible for the [23] Catholic Church to do otherwise than brand the cultus of Lucifer as identical with that of Satan, because, according to her unswerving instruction, the name Lucifer is an equivalent of Satan, and, moreover, the Luciferian cultus is so admittedly anti-Christian that no form of Christianity could do otherwise than regard it as a worship of darkness and evil. ”

“ When Lucifer was expelled from heaven after his rebellion against God, having become of a nature to be attracted to the centre of the earth, and no longer drawn heavenwards, he fell from heaven, and impinged upon the earth just at the antipodes of Jerusalem, with such violence that he plunged right through it to the centre, throwing up behind him a hill. ”

“ Then Lucifer, speaking in the name of all the evil spirits, will raise his voice with a roar like that of a lion, and accuse all mankind in a body: "Most just Judge of the living and the dead, I bring a charge against all the human beings assembled here. Since it seemed right to Thy stern justice to banish me and all the Angels who joined with me from Heaven on account of one single sin, and to condemn us to everlasting damnation, it is only fair that Thou shouldst include all mankind in the same condemnation with myself, and cast all men here present into the abyss of Hell. ”

“ Between the figures which represented “heaven” and “hell,” several young ladies passed with wreaths of flowers on their heads, and palms in their hands, riding in elegant carriages. After Hell followed old Lucifer himself, armed with a pitchfork, and leading St. Michael the archangel in chains. Michael and Lucifer were followed by a person dressed in a kind of harlequin’s coat hung round with bells, holding a hoop in his hands, through which he frequently jumped, and showed many other feats of activity; but what, or who he represented I cannot say (except it were a fool) . ”