h verse of the second psalm,
concerning kings: "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou
shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." But is it not the
Lord himself who has ordained kings and wills that all men should
honor and obey them? Here he condemns and spurns the wisdom of the
prudent and the righteousness of the righteous. It is God's proper and
incessant work to condemn what is most magnificent, to cast down the
most exalted and to defeat the strongest, though they be his own
creatures. He does this, however, that abundant evidence of his wrath
may terrify the ungodly and may arouse us to despair of ourselves and
to trust in his power alone. We must either live under the shadow of
God's wing, in faith in his grace, or we must perish.

5. After the fall it came to pass that the more one was blessed with
gifts, the greater was his pride. This was the sin of the angels who
fell. This was the sin of the primitive world, in which the grandest
people of the race lived; but because they prided themselves in their
wisdom and other gifts, they perished. This was the sin of the
greatest kings. This was the sin of nearly all the first-born. But
what is the need of so many words? This is original sin--that we fail
to recognize and rightly use the great and precious gifts of God.

6. That the greatest men must furnish the most abhorrent examples is
not the fault of the gifts and blessings, but of those to whom they
are intrusted. God is a dialectician and judges the person by the
thing,[1] meting out destruction to the thing or gift as well as to
its possessor.

[Footnote 1: _ut arguat a conjugatis._]

7. It is expedient to give heed to such examples. They are given that
the proud may fear and be humbled, and that we may learn our utter
dependence upon the guidance and will of God, who resisteth the proud
but giveth grace to the humble. Lacking the understanding and practice
of these truths, man falls continually--kings, nobles, saints, one
after the other, filling the world with examples of the wrath and
judgment of God. The Blessed Virgin sings: "He hath scattered the
proud in the imagination of their heart. He hath put down the princes
from their thrones, and hath exalted them of low degree." Lk 1, 51-53.

8. Full of such examples are all ages, all princely courts, all lands.
Yet, by the grace of Saint Diabolus, the prince of this world, our
hearts are so hard that we are not moved by all this to fear; r