For instance, Cyrus could not have conquered the Median Empire at a single blow, if first that empire had not been utterly rotten; and next, if he and his handful of Persians had not been tempered and sharpened, by long hardihood, to the finest cutting edge.
Yes, there were all the materials for the catastrophe--the cannon, the powder, the shot. But to say that the Persians must have conquered the Medes, even if Cyrus had never lived, is to say, as too many philosophers seem to me to say, that, given cannon, powder, and shot, it will fire itself off some day if we only leave it alone long enough.
It may be so. But our usual experience of Nature and Fact is, that spontaneous combustion is a rare and exceptional phenomenon; that if a cannon is to be fired, someone must arise and pull the trigger.
And I believe that in Society and Politics, when a great event is ready to be done, someone must come and do it--do it, perhaps, half unwittingly, by some single rash act--like that first fatal shot fired by an electric spark.
But to return to Cyrus and his Persians.
I know not whether the "Cyropaedia" is much read in your schools and universities. But it is one of the books which I should like to see, either in a translation or its own exquisite Greek, in the hands of every young man. It is not all fact. It is but a historic romance. But it is better than history. It is an ideal book, like Sidney's "Arcadia" or Spenser's "Fairy Queen"--the ideal self-education of an ideal hero. And the moral of the book--ponder it well, all young men who have the chance or the hope of exercising authority among your follow-men--the noble and most Christian moral of that heathen book is this: that the path to solid and beneficent influence over our fellow-men lies, not through brute force, not through cupidity, but through the highest morality;through justice, truthfulness, humanity, self-denial, modesty, courtesy, and all which makes man or woman lovely in the eyes of mortals or of God.
Yes, the "Cyropaedia" is a noble book, about a noble personage. But I cannot forget that there are nobler words by far concerning that same noble personage, in the magnificent series of Hebrew Lyrics, which begins "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith the Lord"--in which the inspired poet, watching the rise of Cyrus and his Puritans, and the fall of Babylon, and the idolatries of the East, and the coming deliverance of his own countrymen, speaks of the Persian hero in words so grand that they have been often enough applied, and with all fitness, to one greater than Cyrus, and than all men:
Who raised up the righteous man from the East, And called him to attend his steps?
Who subdued nations at his presence, And gave him dominion over kings?
And made them like the dust before his sword, And the driven stubble before his bow?
He pursueth them, he passeth in safety, By a way never trodden before by his feet.
Who hath performed and made these things, Calling the generations from the beginning?
I, Jehovah, the first and the last, I am the same.
Behold my servant, whom I will uphold;
My chosen, in whom my soul delighteth;
I will make my spirit rest upon him, And he shall publish judgment to the nations.
He shall not cry aloud, nor clamour, Nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets.
The bruised reed he shall not break, And the smoking flax he shall not quench.
He shall publish justice, and establish it.
His force shall not be abated, nor broken, Until he has firmly seated justice in the earth, And the distant nations shall wait for his Law.
Thus saith the God, even Jehovah, Who created the heavens, and stretched them out;Who spread abroad the earth, and its produce:
I, Jehovah, have called thee for a righteous end, And I will take hold of thy hand, and preserve thee, And I will give thee for a covenant to the people, And for a light to the nations;To open the eyes of the blind, To bring the captives out of prison, And from the dungeon those who dwell in darkness.
I am Jehovah--that is my name;
And my glory will I not give to another, Nor my praise to the graven idols.
Who saith to Cyrus--Thou art my shepherd, And he shall fulfil all my pleasure:
Who saith to Jerusalem--Thou shalt be built;And to the Temple--Thou shalt be founded.
Thus saith Jehovah to his anointed, To Cyrus whom I hold fast by his right hand, That I may subdue nations under him, And loose the loins of kings;That I may open before him the two-leaved doors, And the gates shall not be shut;I will go before thee And bring the mountains low.
The gates of brass will I break in sunder, And the bars of iron hew down.
And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, And the hoards hid deep in secret places, That thou mayest know that I am Jehovah.
I have surnamed thee, though thou knowest not me.
I am Jehovah, and none else;
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I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me, That they may know from the rising of the sun, And from the west, that there is none beside me;I am Jehovah, and none else;Forming light and creating darkness;
Forming peace, and creating evil.
I, Jehovah, make all these.
This is the Hebrew prophet's conception of the great Puritan of the Old World who went forth with such a commission as this, to destroy the idols of the East, while The isles saw that, and feared, And the ends of the earth were afraid;They drew near, they came together;Everyone helped his neighbour, And said to his brother, Be of good courage.
The carver encouraged the smith, He that smoothed with the hammer Him that smote on the anvil;Saying of the solder, It is good;And fixing the idol with nails, lest it be moved;But all in vain; for as the poet goes on:
Bel bowed down, and Nebo stooped;
Their idols were upon the cattle, A burden to the weary beast.
They stoop, they bow down together;
They could not deliver their own charge;
Themselves are gone into captivity.
And what, to return, what was the end of the great Cyrus and of his empire?
Alas, alas! as with all human glory, the end was not as the beginning.
