When I was a Sunday-school scholar something more than sixty years ago, I
became interested in Satan, and wanted to find out all I could about him.
I began to ask questions, but my class-teacher, Mr. Barclay the
stone-mason, was reluctant about answering them, it seemed to me. I was
anxious to be praised for turning my thoughts to serious subjects when
there wasn't another boy in the village who could be hired to do such a
thing. I was greatly interested in the incident of Eve and the serpent,
and thought Eve's calmness was perfectly noble. I asked Mr. Barclay if
he had ever heard of another woman who, being approached by a serpent,
would not excuse herself and break for the nearest timber. He did not
answer my question, but rebuked me for inquiring into matters above my
age and comprehension. I will say for Mr. Barclay that he was willing to
tell me the facts of Satan's history, but he stopped there: he wouldn't
allow any discussion of them.
In the course of time we exhausted the facts. There were only five or
six of them, you could set them all down on a visiting-card. I was
disappointed. I had been meditating a biography, and was grieved to find
that there were no materials. I said as much, with the tears running
down. Mr. Barclay's sympathy and compassion were aroused, for he was a
most kind and gentle-spirited man, and he patted me on the head and
cheered me up by saying there was a whole vast ocean of materials! I can
still feel the happy thrill which these blessed words shot through me.
Then he began to bail out that ocean's riches for my encouragement and
joy. Like this: it was "conjectured"--though not established--that Satan
was originally an angel in heaven; that he fell; that he rebelled, and
brought on a war; that he was defeated, and banished to perdition. Also,
"we have reason to believe" that later he did so-and-so; that "we are
warranted in supposing" that at a subsequent time he travelled
extensively, seeking whom he might devour; that a couple of centuries
afterward, "as tradition instructs us," he took up the cruel trade of
tempting people to their ruin, with vast and fearful results; that
by-and-by, "as the probabilities seem to indicate," he may have done
certain things, he might have done certain other things, he must have
done still other things.
And so on and so on. We set down the five known facts by themselves, on
a piece of paper, and numbered it "page 1"; then on fifteen hundred other
pieces of paper we set down the "conjectures," and "suppositions," and
"maybes," and "perhapses," and "doubtlesses," and "rumors," and
"guesses," and "probabilities," and "likelihoods," and "we are permitted
to thinks," and "we are warranted in believings," and "might have beens,"
and "could have beens," and "must have beens," and "unquestionablys," and
"without a shadow of doubts"--and behold!
_Materials_? Why, we had enough to build a biography of Shakespeare!
Yet he made me put away my pen; he would not let me write the history of
Satan. Why? Because, as he said, he had suspicions; suspicions that my
attitude in this matter was not reverent; and that a person must be
reverent when writing about the sacred characters. He said any one who
spoke flippantly of Satan would be frowned upon by the religious world
and also be brought to account.
I assured him, in earnest and sincere words, that he had wholly
misconceived my attitude; that I had the highest respect for Satan, and
that my reverence for him equalled, and possibly even exceeded, that of
any member of any church. I said it wounded me deeply to perceive by his
words that he thought I would make fun of Satan, and deride him, laugh at
him, scoff at him: whereas in truth I had never thought of such a thing,
but had only a warm desire to make fun of those others and laugh at
_them_. "What others?" "Why, the Supposers, the Perhapsers, the
Might-Have-Beeners, the Could-Have-Beeners, the Must-Have-Beeners, the
Without-a-Shadow-of-Doubters, the We-are-Warranted-in-Believingers, and
all that funny crop of solemn architects who have taken a good solid
foundation of five indisputable and unimportant facts and built upon it a
Conjectural Satan thirty miles high."
What did Mr. Barclay do then? Was he disarmed? Was he silenced? No.
He was shocked. He was so shocked that he visibly shuddered. He said
the Satanic Traditioners and Perhapsers and Conjecturers were
_themselves_ sacred! As sacred as their work. So sacred that whoso
ventured to mock them or make fun of their work, could not afterward
enter any respectable house, even by the back door.
How true were his words, and how wise! How fortunate it would have been
for me if I had heeded them. But I was young, I was but seven years of
age, and vain, foolish, and anxious to attract attention. I wrote the
biography, and have never been in a respectable house since.