They recognized no title to superiority but his favor;
and, confident of that favor, they despised all the accomplishments and
all the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted with the
works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles
of God. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds,
they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not
accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering
angels had charge over them. Their palaces were houses not made with
hands; their diadems crowns of glory which should never fade away.
On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down
with contempt: for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious
treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles' by the right
of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier
hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious
and terrible importance belonged, on whose slightest action the spirits
of light and darkness looked with anxious interest, who had been
destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity
which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away.
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