Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes.
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Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.
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Revelation 7:9:
After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.
(NIV)
After this I looked and a vast host appeared which no one could count, [gathered out] of every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages. These stood before the throne and before the Lamb; they were attired in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.
(AMP)
After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;
(KJV)
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Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self, in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one's nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned. This trust in one's nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one's robes.
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Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never;Never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams!Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit for ever;Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems!Who knoweth it exhaustless, self-sustained,Immortal, indestructible,shall suchSay, I have killed a man, or caused to kill?Nay, but as when one layethHis worn-out robes away,And, taking new ones, sayeth,These will I wear to-day!So putteth by the spiritLightly its garb of flesh,And passeth to inheritA residence afresh.
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An identity is questioned only when it is menaced, as when the mighty begin to fall, or when the wretched begin to rise, or when the stranger enters the gates, never, thereafter, to be a stranger. Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self: in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one's nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned. This trust in one's nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one's robes.
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Through tattered clothes, small vices do appear. Robes and furred gowns hide all.
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Acts 1:10:
They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.
(NIV)
And while they were gazing intently into heaven as He went, behold, two men [dressed] in white robes suddenly stood beside them
(AMP)
And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
(KJV)
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Let arms give place to civic robes, laurels to paeans.
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