Luke 1:46-55 And Mary said, My soul does magnify the Lord,… How proudly in history sounded the name of William the Conqueror I Intimidator of France and Anjou and Brittany, victor at Hastings sustaining the English crown, driving people from their homes that he might have a game forest, making a Domesday Book by which all the land was put under despotic espionage to avenge a joke at his obesity, proclaiming war, trampling harvest-fields and vineyards under cavalry hoof, until nations were horror-struck. But at that apex of renown, while he was riding one day his horse put forefoot on a hot cinder and plunged, wounding the rider against the pommel of the saddle so that he died, his son hastening to England to get the crown before his father's breath ceased. The imperial corpse, coffinless, carried in a cart, most of the attendants leaving it in the street at a fire alarm, that they might go and see the conflagration. The burial in the church, built by the Conqueror, interrupted by some one who cried: "Bishop, the man whom thou hast praised was a robber; the very ground on which we are standing is mine, and is the site where my father's house stood. He took it from me by violence to build this church upon it. I reclaim it as my right, and in the name of God I forbid you to bury him here or cover him with my glebe." "Go up," said the ambition of William the Conqueror. "Go up by way of a throne; go up by way of criminality; go up by way of revenge." "Come down," says God. "Come down by the way of a miserable death; come down by the way of ignominious obsequies; come down in the sight of all nations; come clear down; come for ever down!" (Dr. Talmage.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, |
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