54 DISCOURSES OF FATHER HYACINTHE. 



SOD, Naboth, who had blasphemed God and the king. 

 And on this occasion, as, ahas, on so many others, the 

 judges peeped nnder the sacred bandage of justice, and 

 saw something more than justice itself. They cited 

 Naboth before the people, and suborned two sons of 

 Belial to bear witness against the innocent. The guilt- 

 less man was. stoned. Jezebel, in triumph, said to 

 Ahab, ^' Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Xaboth 

 the Jezreelite, which he refused to give thee for money : 

 for î^aboth is not alive, but dead." But while he was 

 going toward that coveted estate, a man was Vv'aiting to 

 meet him at the gate. Covered with the skins of wild 

 beasts, with a leathern girdle about his loins, he had 

 descended from the rocky heights of Carmel. A dwell- 

 er in the desert, he respected the kingly majesty, but 

 he braved the wrath of kings, when the kings trampled 

 on the law of the Lord, and on the rights of their sub- 

 jects. It was the prophet Elijah. Looking the usurper 

 in the face, the prophet spake to the king : ^' Thou hast 

 killed, and now thou hast taken possession. Eobber 

 and murderer, thus saith the Lord : In the place where 

 dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy 

 blood, even thine."* 



This is liberty! It is the outcry of every honest 

 man's conscience in face of the violation of a right. It 

 is the protest of public opinion against the abuse of 

 force, and the more perilous abuse of law. 



[In conclusion, Father Hyacinthe remarked upon tlie error, 

 now-a-cla3's so common, of identiiying the interests of liberty 

 with questions of the form of government, Avhich are necessarily 

 secondary and subordinate to circumstances of time and place. 

 It is not the form of power, but the limits of power, which it is 



♦ 1 Kings, chapti-r xLx, 



