In The Silver Chair, Rilian, the son of Caspian the Explorer, was born to be king of Narnia. This was his birthright, and a joy both for him and for a Narnia that was still in its first generation of unification. His father was the man of two worlds, who could therefore lead them both, ruling by the gift of the High King, the election of Aslan, and law of the Telmarines. His mother was the daughter of a star. Much good was to be expected from his rule. And so, naturally, he became the target of dark forces.

His story ought to be familiar to us, for it is our story as well. If it doesn’t seem that way at first, that can only be because we have forgotten who we are: sons of God, heirs in the kingdom, fellow-citizens with the saints. Pause on the saints for a moment: if the world is not worthy of them, what shall we say of their fellow-citizens? And like him, a witch lays a trap for our souls, aiming to strike at the kingdom through us.

The Silver Chair is a story of enchantment: the prince is to be put under a spell. To what end? In order to turn him into a weapon against the things he holds most dear. The green witch’s plan is to invade Narnia with an army of deep gnomes, with Prince Rilian as their general. Then, once Narnia has been conquered, she will crown him king, marry him, and they will rule together as king and queen. It is his own kingdom she would have him conquer! She sets him on to war against that which is already rightfully his; but if he comes to it her way, he will lose it. For in the invasion, his aged father will be killed, most likely by his own hand or the hand of the witch. The beloved land of his youth will be gone, and an age of tyranny worse than that of the Telmarines or the White Witch will begin. The delicious and wicked joy of it for the green witch is that she will have brought about Narnia’s destruction through the one who had been the pinnacle of Narnia’s hopes for the future.

She sets him on to war against that which is already rightfully his; but if he comes to it her way, he will lose it.

 

This is a powerful lesson. In the first instance, Narnia does not represent the Kingdom of God, which cannot be assailed by any wile of the dark powers. Rather, it represents our souls, the great treasure given to us as a talent to be nurtured and developed so that we may render good account when the master comes to see what we’ve done with it. And so the demons aim to take that in us that should most lead us to glory and use it to tear down our hopes, dreams, and our futures. I am reminded of John Donne: “Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, / But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue” (“Holy Sonnet 14”). And when everything that is most beautiful and Christ-like lies around us in smoking ruins, only then will they crown us king, so that we may rule in a Hellish marriage over the devastation of the image of the glory of God that we could have been. Every soul and every demon in Hell rules over a kingdom so small it is one breath away from being nothing, and gets no joy of his total power over his tiny realm.

The enchantment of the prince is a bondage, one he willingly fell into but from which he cannot extract himself. This is ever the course of sin: that we have the power to place ourselves in its power, but not the power to extract ourselves. But the question is, how was Rilian drawn into this bondage?

The answer is disturbing: he was allured by beauty. To be sure, at first he haunted the northern wilds looking for the serpent that had slain his mother, hoping to kill it and get vengeance. His obsession was all-consuming and unhealthy, wearing down his strength and his reason: he was being made vulnerable. And then, when he is world-weary enough, the witch appears to him in a pleasing form. “I have seen there the most beautiful thing that was ever made,” he says (The Silver Chair, ch. 4). To possess that beauty, he forsook his kingdom and his old, grieving father, and he who was born to rule charged willingly into subjugation.

And then, when he is world-weary enough, the witch appears to him in a pleasing form.

 

And the irony is that he found what he was looking for: he went out seeking the serpent that had struck his mother and caused her death; and the beautiful woman he found, promising him every sort of pleasure, was that very serpent. Only he was not able to recognize her, for he was blinded by the fury and grief in his heart, and he looked with the eyes of the body rather than the eyes of the soul.

And so beware of beauty: beware of the beauty that glitters and dazzles and promises you every pleasure and a kingdom for you to rule, but that hides a filthy, wicked serpent underneath. How do we avoid getting sucked in by the false beauty of the world and by the extravagance of the demonic promises? By remembering who we are. You see, the witch’s lies could make no headway with the prince unless she first took his memories away. At night, when her spell failed for the space of but one hour, he knew who he was, and that her promises were vain and vile. If he could only hold on to those memories, they would be an armor no promise of hers could penetrate. And so we must remember, we must remind ourselves daily, constantly; for if we forget, we cannot count on a marsh-wiggle and children summoned from another world to search through the northern wastes to find us. God is gracious; but those who presume on that grace often find that they have made themselves such that His grace will not avail them.