Dust unto Dust
No lesson is learnt from the passing of all great men divested of their glory. No one considers that his end will be the same, no matter how illustrious his life is and that no trace of former glory can pass with him into the life Hereafter.
Although Napolean Bonaparte (1769-1821) started his career as a military officer, he so distinguished himself whenever opportunities came his way that he finally succeeded in ascending the French throne, having proclaimed himself the Emperor of France in 1804. He then set out to conquer the world. In a short time, he had dominated the whole of Europe except for England. In 1796, he married a charming French lady, Josephine, but divorced her in 1809 as she had failed to bear a successor to the Emperor of Europe.
One year later, Napolean married Marie-Louise, daughter of the King of Austria, who, to the satisfaction of Napolean, bore him a son and heir, Francois Joseph Charles, who would continue the monarchy. Before long, however, his excessive greed for territorial power led him to clash with Russia. Although the latter’s army failed to repulse him, the Russian climate came to their rescue. When the snow started falling, and temperatures went far below zero, Napoleon’s army could not advance any further, unaccustomed to such a severe winter cold. As a result, Napolean was compelled to retreat in such a state of disarray that a significant part of his army perished on the way. With his significantly reduced army, he was defeated by Germany at Leipzig in 1813 and abdicated in 1814. He was then exiled to the Island of Elba. However, he managed to escape but returned to power only to suffer a crushing defeat at the hands of the British at Waterloo in 1815. He was taken captive and sent off to the Island of St. Helena. The man who had been the idol of his countrymen—“the greatest adventurer the world has seen”—died in imprisonment in 1821, in a state of utter despair.
A man dreams of glory and splendour not only for himself but also as a priceless treasure to be passed on to his children; he remains blissfully unaware that before long, he is to be divested of all his glory, shorn of his titles, and reduced to a heap of dust. Each day, in this world, one ‘Napolean’ or the other disappears from life’s stage, but scant attention is paid to this fact.
In the present world, man is given opportunities strictly defined in their scope and period in the context of the divine scheme of things. In terms of human life, they have their limitations. However, man’s ambition knows no bounds, and he lives out his life in the most incautious and unrestrained manner. Moreover, what happens to the personal glory he was wont to pride himself on at the end? It is buried in the dust. But no lesson is learnt from their passing. Everyone sets out to blaze the same trails, write books, and climb mountains like his predecessors. No one considers that the end will be the same, no matter how illustrious the life and that no trace of former glory can pass with one into the life Hereafter.
