The  vineyards  he  has  laboriously  cultivated  he  cannot  protect
from  blight.  The  harvests  he  is  ready  to  reap  are  wasted  by
destructive  rains.  On  the  land,  his  cities  perish  by  earthquakes :
on  the  sea,  his  ships  go  down  in  the  storm.  His  health  is  ruined
and  his  moral  nature  corrupted  by  the  strong  temptations  of
the  outward  world,  which  betray  him  into  sensual  excesses.  He
has  come  to  be  so  humiliated  and  degraded  that  he  has  looked
up  to  the  moon  and  stars  which  were  made  to  serve  him,  and  has
called  them  his  gods ;  he  has  placed  four-footed  beasts  and  creep
ing  things  in  the  shrine  of  his  temples,  and  has  implored  them  to
avert  the  calamities  he  dreaded,  and  to  bestow  on  him  the  bless
ings  for  which  he  longed.  The  traces  of  his  kingship  have  not
disappeared ;  slowly  and  painfully  in  one  province  of  his  do
minions  after  another,  especially  since  Christ  came,  and  in  the
lands  of  Christendom,  he  has  been  winning  back  the  authority  he
had  lost ;  but  his  hand  is  too  feeble  to  hold  the  sceptre,  and  on
all  sides  the  subject  creation  is  in  open  revolt — revolt  which  he
seems  often  unable  even  to  check,  and  is  quite  unable  to  subdue.
