Appeals against Human Injustice. the breast, so that he died on the following day, Dec. 7, 1254. At the opening of the thirteenth century Absalom was Archbishop of Lund, in Swe den. There was a tract of land held by the church of Lund in conjunction with a wealthy bonder, and as much controversy and quarrel arose from the double rights, the Archbishop asked the bonder to divide the land equally between him and the see. The bonder, weary of the strife, consented. The Archbishop and he proceeded one summer day to measure out and parcel the land in dispute. As Absalom would trust none but himself, he held one end of the rope, and bade the bonder hold the other. Whilst thus engaged he shouted to the other to pull harder and stir his stumps, as they had a long day's work before them. The bonder, nettled, tugged at the rope and jerked the Archbishop off his feet, so that he fell backwards on some stones and cut his head. Absalom, in a great rage, declared that the bonder had rendered himself liable to excommunication, and that he would be placed under papal ban unless he put his case unreservedly into his hands. The farmer, finding himself powerless to resist, did so; when Absalom condemned him to surren der to the church his portion of the cov eted estate. The bonder was thus reduced from the position of a wealthy man to one of small means. The vexation preyed on his mind, and he fell ill. Finding himself dying, he sent for a priest, and promised him his best horse and saddle and bridle if he would ride, the moment the breath was out of his body, to Lund, and summon Archbishop Absalom before the throne of God to answer for the injustice done him. The priest did as required. On the 21st of March, 1201, he appeared before the Archbishop and pro nounced his summons. At once Absalom turned deadly pale, fell out of his seat, and was taken up dead. Ferdinand IV., King of Castile, is said to have been summoned within thirty days to answer before the heavenly Judge for a wrong
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he had done; and he died on the thirtieth day. The Bishop of Senez was preaching before Louis XV., and took for his text, " Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." He gave such a pointed account of the vices of the godless city and its king, that the whole court thrilled with uneasiness, believ ing he was warning the king; and when he concluded with a significant gesture and hand outstretched towards Louis XV., " Yet forty days, — and then overthrow," it was taken as a denunciation of, and warning to, the king. Within the time specified Louis XV. was no more, — May 10, 1774. No more infamous a perversion of justice probably ever occurred than the condemna tion of the Templars, whose wealth and power made them feared by the King of France; and the Pope, Clement V., surren dered the unhappy Order to the French King. Du Molay, grand master, was burned alive. As he mounted the funeral pyre, in a clear, calm voice he declared : " Before heaven and earth, on the verge of death, where the least falsehood bears like lead upon the soul, I protest that our sole guilt has been that we trusted the seductive words of the Pope and king." Then he cried : "Clement, iniquitous and cruel judge," — some accounts say he included Philip the Fair, the king, — "I summon thee to meet me before the throne of God." A year passed, and Clement and Philip were dead (I3I4)An earlier story relates to the Council of Chalcedon (451), which condemned Dioscorus, sometime Bishop of Alexandria, for his Eutychianism. The monks had taken up eagerly the side of heresy, under one Barsumas. As they could not obtain recognition of the heresy by the Council, they fiercely shook their garments in contempt of the assembled fathers; and Barsumas loudly summoned Pulcheria, the Empress, whose influence had led to the assembly of the Council, to answer for it before the supreme Judge. She died a few days after, and Bar
