, are mainly due to the same cause which emptied
heavenly thrones of their angelic occupants. What is it, let me ask,
that comes into clearer prominence as the Washington tragedy[1] is
being investigated and scrutinized? Is it not that a diseased egotism,
or perhaps it would be more correct to say, a stalwart egotism, robbed
this country of its ruler, committed "most sacrilegious murder," and
"broke ope"

"The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o' the building."

[Footnote 1: The assassination of President Garfield.]

Like bloody Macbeth, who greedily drank in the prognostications of the
weird sisters, tho he feared that the "supernatural soliciting" could
not be good, because they pandered to his monstrous self-infatuation,
Guiteau, having wrought himself up through many years of
self-complacency, claims to have believed that the divine Being had
chosen him to do a deed which has filled the earth with horror. Thus
the growth of self-conceit into mammoth proportions tends to obscure
the rights of others, and to darken with its gigantic shadow the
light of conscience. If we are to admit the prisoner's story, as the
expression of his real condition prior to the assassination, we look
on one so intoxicated with the sense of his own importance that he
would "spurn the sea, if it could roar at him," and hesitate not to
perform any deed of darkness that would render him more conspicuous.
Others, less heinous offenders than this garrulous murderer, have,
from similar weakness, wrought indescribable mischief to themselves.
The man, for instance, who frets against providence because his
standing is not higher and his influence greater, has evidently
a better opinion of his deservings than is wholesome for him. He
imagines he is being wronged by the Creator--that his merits are not
recognized as they should be--never, for a moment, remembering that,
as a sinner, he has no claims on the extraordinary bounty of his
heavenly Father. From murmuring he easily glides into open rebellion,
and from whispered reproaches to loud denunciations. There are people
in every community whose pride leads them into shameful transactions.
They would not condescend to mingle with their social inferiors, but
they will subsist on the earnings of their friends, and consider it no
disgrace to borrow money which they have no intention of returning.
Their vanity, at times, commits them to extravagances which they have
no means of sup