324 Elbert N. S. Thompson 
Pride, clad in lion’s skin and linen mantle that bellies in the wind, 
dashes up on a fiery steed. The few ill-armed troops that Humility 
and Hope have gathered arouse only her scorn, and, riding out 
between the lines, she heaps ridicule upon them for daring to face 
her, and boasts that she will trample them down—Justice, poor 
Honesty, meager Sobriety, spare Fast, Shame, Simplicity, and all 
the rest. These threats and scoffs Pride utters as she spurs her 
unbridled steed wildly between the lines, hoping thus to terrify her 
humble foes and override them. But suddenly her charger stumbles, 
and falls headlong into a trench, which Fraud, to entrap the moving 
squadrons, has dug and cleverly concealed beneath branches and 
turf. Hope, seeing her enemy’s plight, runs hastily to Humility 
with a sword, and Pride’s head is soon hanging by the bloodwet 
hair. ‘Cease to boast,” cries Hope to her followers, “for God 
humbles the proud.” Leaving this as her final message, the virtue 
flles on golden wings to heaven. 
Thereupon Luxury, unmindful of her tarnished name, leaving a 
gluttonous feast, drives up in a chariot built of gold and silver, 
and studded with precious stones. A strange warfare this drunken, 
perfumed temptress, with her alluring eyes and languid voice, comes 
to wage. Instead of arrows and javelins she bears violets and roses, 
which she scatters from baskets among the Christian troops. Their 
limbs are weakened by the sweet odors, and they are ready to 
surrender, longing to serve under the debauched mistress and to 
be held by her lax, carnal laws. But Sobriety, smarting at such 
easy surrender, fixes the banner of the cross in the ground before 
the troops, and rouses their courage with reproaches and entreaties. 
Thus made mindful of their high lineage, and the greatness of their 
ancestors, the Jewish patriarchs, they advance. Luxury’s horses rear 
and overturn the chariot, and she herself is caught in the whirling 
wheels. As Sobriety kills her with a stone, her frightened followers 
flee—Jest and Illwill throwing away their cymbals, which have 
served as weapons, Love casting aside its arrows, and Pride its 
splendor. The valuables thus discarded are left untouched, at 
Sobriety’s command, to be trodden under foot. 
But Avarice, attracted by the plunder, greedily gathers up the 
fallen treasure with her hooked hand, filling not only her ample 
bosom, but the money-bags and the basket that hangs by her arm. 
Care, Famine, Fear, Anxiety, Perjury, Pallor, Deceit, Falsehood, 
Sleeplessness, and Uncleanness, follow their mother like wolves; for 
with one or another of these children Avarice assails every class 
of men to its ruin. The priests of God, whom she dares to tempt, 
