One meaning pervades the delineation. The pride which alienates Satan from God, alienates him at last from himself.—He is wicked, and the ways of wickedness are crooked and creeping. The haughtiest of spirits in seeking to revenge his just punishment stoops to the lowest abasement. A great lesson is written on the front of this great revolution. A mind has let go of its only stronghold, and it slips lower and lower. We have seen a Spirit exalted in the favour of the Creator;—high in rank, strong in power, rich in gifts, radiant with glory, seated in bliss;—and the same cast down into misery and into dishonour. The Cause is, that he has deserted Obedience and Love. NORTH. This is not a picture removed to a distance from us, to be looked at with wonder. It is a lesson for each of us. Can we not imagine the Poet himself telling us this? Can we not raise our thoughts, to fancy Milton drawing the moral of his astonishing picture? “You are Spirits,” he might say to us—“the creation of the same hand. Heavenly gifts are yours, and heavenly favours; and notwithstanding the fall of man, gleams, vestiges are yours of heavenly glory. To you the same choice is offered of adhering, or of separating yourselves. In you is the same ground of temptation, the same difficulty of adhering, a misunderstood _self-love_. You too are tempted to enthrone self upon the usurped throne of the divine legislator. To obey the law of right—to follow out the law of love, is only difficult because we feel, in every instance of being called upon so to do, that we are called upon to make some sacrifice of ourselves. It is an error—a mistaken feeling. We are called upon to sacrifice not ourselves, but a _present inclination_, which self suggests. Make the sacrifice—obey, fulfil the law that makes the claim upon you, and you will find that you have relinquished a fallacious, for a real good. Follow the false inclination, and you will find that instead of enthroning yourselves in the despite of Heaven’s King, you have begun to descend steps of endless descent.—Be warned by terrible example.” TALBOYS. We see of mankind some that are lifted up in power and exalted by their native powers—mighty minds holding ascendancy over other minds—Kings—Conquerors—Philosophers—sitting upon the thrones of the Earth, or upon intellectual thrones. To them there is the same hazard. There is the same inward solicitation of pride—the same impulse to self-idolatry. They would usurp—would extend power. Adversaries of God and Man—and knowing themselves for such—the madness of Ambition seizes upon their hearts, and on they go. They seek Exaltation—they find abasement. The false aggrandisement which they have laboured to acquire may or may not be wrested from them. But assuredly the inward abasement will hold on its appointed way.