Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 20, No. 33, November 1877Various
Science
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 20, No. 33, November 1877
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
[Footnote 9: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity! Where are now the
splendid surroundings of the consulship? Where are the gleaming torches,
the applause, the dances, the banquets, the crowded feasts? Where are
the acclamations of the circus, the adulation of the spectators?
Perished. A storm has stripped off the leaves and bared the tree, now
tottering from its root. Where are the feigned friends, the revellings
and drinkings, the swarm of parasites, the various artifices of the
cook, the slaves and ministers to the caprices of the powerful? They
were but night and a dream--the day has come and they have vanished;
they were spring flowers--the spring has ended and they are withered;
they were shadows, and they have passed away--a vapor that is
dissipated, a bubble that is burst, a spider's web that is torn. Who was
higher in place than this man? Who had ascended greater heights of
honor? Now he is more wretched than the prisoner, more pitiable than the
slave, more indigent than the beggar famishing. What need is there of
words when the man is here before us? See the pallor of death on his
cheeks, the chattering of his teeth, the trembling of his limbs--the
broken voice, the unsteady tongue, the form and figure befitting a stony
heart.
"Nor do I say these things as a reproach, but to soften your hearts--to
lead you to be content with his present punishment. Let the rich see
here the ruin of the mighty: let the poor thank his poverty, which has
been a safe asylum, a waveless harbor, a sure defence. To rich and poor,
to high and low, to bond and free, here is a lesson to benefit all. Have
not I softened your hearts and cast out your anger, extinguished your
inhumanity and led you to compassion? Your faces show it, and your
streaming tears. Let us pray to the God of mercy to soften the emperor's
heart. Thus shall God be favorable to us; thus shall our sins be wiped
out; thus shall we adorn the Church; thus to the farthest ends of the
world will be spread the fame of our humanity and forgiveness."]
The third church was built by Theodosius, A.D. 415, and witnessed a
strange occurrence when its throne was occupied by the well-known
Nestorius, whose name still gives an appellation to the widespread
Nestorian sect. Proclus, the bishop of Cyzicus, was preaching in St.
Sophia, and argued in his discourse for the ascription to the Blessed
Virgin of the title "mother of God;" but the patriarch rose from his
throne and denounced, in the presence of the astonished congregation,
the language of the preacher. This church, too, beheld the
excommunication of the Monophysite Acacius, when one of the Sleepless
Brotherhood, as the body of monks was called, pinned to his vestments,
as he was celebrating at the altar, the sentence of the Roman pontiff,
Felix II.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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