Here there is a clear and double echo from the word of Truth. We hear the voice of Solomon crying "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child";1 and the warning declaration of S. James, who associates envying and strife with ruin and confusion. Again; Let them obey that know not how to rule. King Henry VI., Part II., v. 1. The grand duty inculcated both by the Apostle S. Paul and by Shakspere is submission to Authority. "Order is Heaven's first law," a law by which "some are and must be greater than the rest.” 2 Let us hear how Shakspere carries out this thought. When that the general is not like the hive, To whom the foragers shall all repair, What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded, The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Sans check, to good and bad: But, when the planets, In evil mixture, to disorder wander, What plagues and what portents! what mutiny! What raging of the sea! shaking of earth! Commotion in the winds! fights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixture! O, when degree is shaked The enterprise is sick! How could communities, The primogenitive and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, 1 Ecclesiastes, x. 16. 2 Pope's Essay on Man. But by degree, stand in authentic place? And the rude son should strike his father dead: Should lose their names, and so should justice too. 2 According to the Apostolic rule, all things should be done "decently," i.e. fittingly "and in order," and that they may be done "decently," they must be done "in order." The "many members" are to act together with single eye to the welfare and prosperity of the "one body." This unity of action is indispensably requisite, both in the body spiritual and in the body politic. Livy, the Roman Historian, has handed down to us an Apologue which was spoken by Menenius Agrippa to the popular seceders.3 This Apologue Shakspere has given us in his "Coriolanus." "In those days," says the Historian, "when all was not at unity, as now, in man, but every member had its own plans and its own language, the other members became quite indignant that they should all toil and labour for the belly, while it remained at its ease in the midst of them, doing nothing, but enjoying itself. They therefore agreed among themselves, that the hands should not convey any food to the mouth, nor the mouth receive it, nor the teeth chew it. But while they thus thought to starve the belly out, they found themselves and the whole body reduced to the most deplorable state of feebleness, and they then saw that the belly is by no means useless; 2 1 Corinthians, xii. 12, &c. хххіі. 1 1 Corinthians, xiv. 40. 3 Hist. Lib., II. cap. that it gives as well as receives nourishment, distributing to all parts of the body the means of life and health.” The moral of the story is so good and scriptural, and the strain in which Shakspere gives it so lively and humorous, that I shall be pardoned for quoting the entire passage. The speakers are Menenius and a discontented citizen. I shall tell you Menenius. A pretty tale; it may be, you have heard it; I'll hear it, Sir; yet you must not think To fob off our disgraces with a tale, But, an't please you, deliver. Men. There was a time, when all the body's members Rebell'd against the belly; thus accus'd it : That only like a gulf it did remain I' the midst o' the body, idle and inactive, Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing Like labour with the rest; where th' other instruments Did see, and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel, Unto the appetite and affection common Cit. Well, sir, what answer made the belly? Men. Sir, I shall tell you.-With a kind of smile, T' the discontented members, the mutinous parts They are not such as you. Cit. Your belly's answer? what! The kingly crowned head, the vigilant eye, Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter, Men. What then? 'Fore me this fellow speaks! What then? what then? Cit. Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd Who is the sink o' the body Men. Well what then? Cit. The former agents, if they did complain, Men. Cit. Y'are long about it. Note me this, good frieud, Men. Not rash, like his accusers, and thus answer'd. ; You, my good friends"—(this says the belly, mark me)— Men. "Tho' all at once cannot See what I do deliver out to each; Cit. It was an answer. What say you to't? Menenius then proceeds to apply the Apologue to the case of the senators, and of the mutinous members of the Roman state; and to show that there was no benefit which the latter received, but it was derived to them from the higher Powers, whom they foolishly imagined to be living in a state of idle inaction and profitless enjoyment. Connected with the Moral Teaching of the Divine Founder of our Religion, there is a striking peculiarity, which proves at once his immeasurable superiority over all the moral teachers, whether Jewish or Pagan, who had preceded Him. The nature of man is fallen and depravedever averse from good, and continually lusting after evil. If then we would live unaffected by the turbulent disorders, which follow upon sensual indulgence, our natural propensities must be subjected to timely and proper regulation. But where is the check to be placed? Is the heart of man free to run riot among the extravagancies of unchaste 1 desires, provided only that no overt act of sin is admitted, no outward act of guilt allowed to obtain the dominion over us? Our Blessed Lord meets the difficulty, and places the check, where alone it should be placed, on the heart; He (for He knows what is in man) nips sin in the bud ;2 He lays the axe to the very root of the tree. With Him heart-purity is everything. To make the fruit good, He aims at first making good the tree. He follows the polluted and bitter stream up to its very source,3 and there throws in the salt of Divine Grace, and straightway the waters are purified and sweetened. "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes" of the Great Searcher, who discerns the thoughts and intents of the human heart. He it is who knoweth our downsitting, and our uprising, and understandeth our thoughts afar off. 5 6 "Between the acting of a dreadful thing and the first motion" (I am quoting from our Poet) "all the interim" is known to Him. Sin has its source and origin in the thoughts, and if unchecked there, will gradually and almost imperceptibly, attain to its full growth, and develope itself in violent and unrestrained action. Lust, when it hath conceived bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.7 Shakspere introduces Brutus employing a very lively and forcible figure, in order to set forth the danger that would ensue, if Cæsar were allowed to bring his ambitious thoughts 1 Cf. Proverbs, xxiv. 9. 4 Hebrews, iv. 13. 2 Psalm cxxxix. 23, 24. 3 2 Kings, ii. 21. 6 Julius Cæsar, ii. 1. |