loud, but mild methods fail, the boycott is ordered. Those who can stand
undaunted in the presence of roaring threats will quail before the
prospects of financial ruin. Employees are discharged, patronage cut off,
positions given to others, preachers asked to resign. Somehow evil is so
compactly organized, wires of connection are so completely in touch with
every nook and corner, that the "boss" sits quietly at the switchboard and
issues orders. The "big stick" and boycott have carried many elections;
municipal, state, and national; they have made merchandise of sovereignty,
and bargain counters of conscience. "Your clerk must take his name off
that petition, or we will withdraw our patronage;" "His wife is an active
worker in the W. C. T. U.--you must discharge him," were the identical
words overheard in a private office. Business and public men dread the
boycott. Behind the boycott is our "adversary, the Devil."
But the bluff and boycott by no means mark the limit when the self-assumed
rights and privileges of the lion are questioned. Few can rise above the
threat and intimidation; but the roaring activities of the boss will not
always suffice. The lion in corrupt politics, in evil traffics, in
priestly bigotry and intolerance, will not hesitate to stab, shoot, or
burn to get rid of an offensive opposer. It is not necessary to discuss
facts so well known as these; but we are investigating the sources; we
want to locate the bacilli rather than examine the pustule.
We wish to reiterate a previous statement; the "roaring lion" is never
heard if the still fight, the oily snake methods serve to a better
advantage. The Apostle's exhortation is timely: "Be vigilant, be
sober"--be on the alert constantly, and be at your best, as an "adversary"
who knows no boundary lines in his work of subjugation and destruction has
declared war to the end.
IX
AN ANGEL OF LIGHT
"For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming
themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan
himself is transformed into an angel of light."--_2 Corinthians xi.
13-14._
The Devil is a person, with a great personality; but like human beings, he
is not equally endowed in all the attributes of his nature. However, the
Book gives us no information as to his weaknesses. He is all superlative
strength; but if at any point there is a special endowed faculty that
would seem to overshadow the others, it is surely manifested when Satan is
transformed into an _angel of light_. The reason for this is obvious; it
is a return to his old office of "light bearer." When he can effectively
serve his purpose by this startling transformation--darkness to light--he
is at once in a realm where he is familiar with every inch of the
territory.
A close observation of the signs of the times--the happenings in social
and religious circles--will reveal the fact that _light_ is not only his
most familiar rôle, but his favourite rôle. The world is attracted by
things that are bright, beautiful, cheerful; anything that hides the
sombre side of life, throws a mystic veil over its realities, and helps us
to forget--whether it be books, music, lectures, or the nonentities of
society--outweigh all else in the casting of accounts and in forming
comparative estimates.
If Satan were allowed to pose for a full sized picture of himself, just as
he wishes to be seen by the children of this generation, no portrait
painter could produce a specimen of rarer beauty; it would grace the walls
of the most exclusive parlour, and attract special attention in any great
art gallery of the world. There would be no sharp angles, no coarse,
sensuous lines, no out-of-date adornment--the traditional fiery-red would
not appear, but rather the most delicate tints and shades of colour. The
features would be the most graceful and artistic combination of curves and
circles. The "hairy one," the jackal, the snake, the lion, the shadow, the
spoiler at once become as "beautiful as a dream." Amazing transformation!
"The devil of to-day" is not only an apostle of sunshine, but of beauty.
This world is full of beauty; and why should we not forever keep the ugly
and distorted in the background? The development of the beautiful should
be one of the fine arts. Think only of beauty; speak only of beauty; see
only the _beautiful_; then the sinful and unlovely will disappear. An
angel of light--how suggestive!
As an apostle of sunshine his mission is to flood the world with light,
and he does it; but observe--it is _his_ light; it neither warms nor
illuminates, but for spectacular purposes it answers every demand. It
reveals new standards of duty; proves the wrathful things in the Word of
God to be spurious, and the old plan of salvation obsolete and unsuited to
the present day needs. Such words as self-denial, crucifixion, dead to
sin, judgment day, cross bearing, etc., so prominent in the New Testament,
must not be given a literal interpretation. Such truths cast an
unnecessary gloom over the souls of otherwise happy people.
"The devil of to-day" believes that ethical culture should be the slogan,
the watchword, the shibboleth of every pulpit and rostrum. Religion
without refinement is absurd; the esthetic taste should be looked after
more than belief in some abstract Bible doctrine; then the race would be
free from the bondage of creed and fear. True religion is nothing more
than a just appreciation of art, literature, science, philosophy, and
nature. God is in all these things rather than some musty, stereotyped
statement of faith.
He further believes it is a waste of energy for women to be organizing
into societies to study and help conditions among the slums or heathen
lands, and urging upon the hard worked people to pay a tenth of their
income to support missionaries who are better fed and housed than
themselves. Far better devote the time to social clubs, book circles,
euchre and bridge parties, and dressing properly.
We want to call attention again to a truth often overlooked: the Devil and
demons are never satisfied in a disembodied state; when they cannot enter
the souls of men, they seek something else. They will enter a swine when
there is nothing better available. We believe "the prince of the air" can
wield a powerful influence, unincarnated, _in the air_, but he schemes
and works best when he can possess and direct intelligent flesh and blood.
Just now the machinery of the Church and all the auxiliaries are devoting
their energies to various branches of social service; this is good,
Christlike, and necessary; the point we raise, germane to this subject, is
not the work, but the abuse of the idea: social service and
humanitarianism are not religion. They are the fruits of the Good
Samaritan spirit in the world, but they cannot take the place of personal
relationship to God. "Though I give my body to be burned, and all my goods
to feed the poor," says Paul, "it profiteth me nothing" without
love--divine love. The angel-of-light gospel places the emphasis on works
without faith. Love the world, enjoy its lusts and allurements, disregard
all Puritanic ideals of life, be a part of all worldliness--but be kind,
cheerful, optimistic, generous, benevolent: help humanity. "Pay the
fiddler," then dance as you please. Do penance when your conscience lashes
you; but buy indulgences by works of supererogation. "On with the dance,
let joy be unconfined."
A concrete example will illustrate the proposition before us, and also
reveal the power of polished, cultured emissary of "sunshine and smiles."
The little city had a population of about fifteen hundred people; there
were four churches of nearly equal strength. Each congregation had a large
flourishing organization of young people. Scarcely any worldliness
obtained--dancing and card playing rarely ever. The pious, consecrated
young people attracted no little attention. Finally there came to the
place a young woman fresh from college and conservatory as teacher of
music and delsarte. She was an adept at all the niceties of modern
society; things took on new colour at once. The work began with a literary
club, then cards, then the dance. She was beautiful and magnetic; in six
months the "stupid meetin's" of the League and Christian Endeavour were
abandoned for things more exhilarating. The religious foundation which had
been crystallizing for years among the simple hearted boys and girls gave
place to the gayeties imported from the classic circles of city and
college life. She moved among them "an angel of light."
X
THE SOWER OF TARES
"The kingdom of heaven is like a man that sowed good seed in his
field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the
wheat and went away."--_Matthew xiii. 24-25._
"The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the
kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy
that sowed them is the devil."--_Matthew xiii. 38-39._
The parable of the Sower is one of common-sense appeal; the sensible
farmer sows only good seed. The growing of tares among the wheat is not in
the original plan. Good seed were sown, but behold the tares! Whence came
they? While the servants slept an Enemy came and sowed them. The Master
gives us His own interpretation: He is the sower--the good seed are the
children of the kingdom, men and women into whose hearts the Truth has
entered--the converted part of the Church. The sleeping of the servants is
the unwatchfulness of the Church: coldness, indifference, backslidden. The
Enemy seizes the opportunity--the carelessness of Christ's servants--and
sows _bad seed_. The enemy is the Devil--the Wicked One; the bad seed are
the children of the Devil. Growing side by side in this world-field are
the children of God and the children of the Devil.
The tare, or cheat, in appearance resembles the wheat; it grows exactly
the same height, and viewed casually, or at a distance, cannot be
detected from the genuine. Only the threshing and sifting bring out the
difference. These tares are the propaganda of the Devil, but a perfect
imitation of the children of the kingdom. They make a profession, adhere
to the same rules and regulations, profess and maintain, outwardly, a
standard of morality, wear all the regalia--even particular about details.
We observe another striking resemblance: strange as it may seem, these
tares--children of the Devil--seek as their guide no books of heathen
philosophy, or twentieth century atheism; they make great capital of the
Bible; the ceremonies and ordinances are carried out to the letter. On a
day of dress parade and review they meekly grade A 1.
Such an inconsistency is so glaring as to be almost unthinkable; but the
parable teaches it beyond a doubt. The Devil sows into the Church his
children: _a corrupt profession of Jesus Christ_. In a former chapter we
studied the Devil as a _destroyer_; and it will be remembered that in a
preceding parable he came as a vulture devouring the seed; now he seeks to
further weaken and hinder by adulteration. While continuing the
battering-ram process from without, a reversed method is used; he scales
the ramparts and places his cohorts on the inside, and, wherever possible,
assumes leadership in a campaign of self-destruction. We are amazed at
such audacity, but the Master, who is a rival in the field, has
illuminated the parable for us.
There is a note of optimism ringing out in the land to the effect that the
day of triumph is at hand; doors are opening, walls are crumbling,
conservative nations are studying our religion, municipalities are being
renovated, higher standards in public life are demanded, the Church is
lifting the race out of superstition and prejudice--we are about to see a
"nation born in a day." What does it mean? It means that Satan is being
chained--defeated, etc. This sounds good and plausible; but a closer
inspection will reveal, not a retreat, not an armistice, not a victory,
but a _change of base_.
Twenty years ago a leading teacher said: "Unless the signs of the times
fail, the true Church of Christ is about to enter upon the most serious
struggle of her history. She is no longer called merely to fight an open
foe without, but as Dr. Green, of Princeton, says, 'the battle rages
around the citadel,' and she is forced to fight the traitors within. The
real enemy is to be found on the inside." If such a condition were true
then, what is it to-day, since the last two decades have been the most
revolutionary in the history of the Church on the line of skepticism and
advanced thought?
The _Free Thinkers' Magazine_ recently had this to say: "Tom Paine's work
is now carried on by the descendants of his persecutors; all he said about
the Bible is being said in substance by orthodox divines, and from chairs
of theology." Another writer observes: "No need of Bridlaughs and
Ingersols wasting time preaching against the early chapters of Genesis,
sneering at the story of temptation, cavilling at the record of long
lives, denying the confusion of tongues, doubting if not denying the
deluge, when Christian ministers, on account of their official position,
are doing the same work more effectually."
"Freedom of thought in religion," said an orthodox preacher at Tom Paine's
one hundredth anniversary, "just what he stood for, is what most of us
have come to. In his own day vilified as an atheist--to-day he is looked
upon as a defender of just principles of faith." There is a wide range of
opinions found in the growing crop of tares: some are literalists,
touching Biblical interpretation, getting the minutia of husks, but
rejecting the kernel--the envelope, but missing the message; others remain
in the Church, preach a gospel shelter under her roof--eat her bread, but
deny the supernatural _in toto_. Few, if any, are honest enough to step
out.
The Devil prefers his _cheat_ to grow in the same soil prepared for the
wheat. No place is so wholesome and convenient for the children of the
Devil as inside the Church of God. Why is not the wrath of God poured out
on the children of the Devil who have assumed place and power in His
Church? The same processes used for the removal of the tares would injure
and uproot some of the wheat. There is now no remedy; at an unguarded
moment the harm was done. The Enemy continues to enter every available
door, sowing, sowing, sowing--beside all waters. Not until the angelic
reapers thrust in their sickles for the harvest will the children of the
Devil cease to occupy, influence, and control.
XI
THE ARCH SLANDERER
"For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes
shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and
evil."--_Genesis iii. 5._
"But put forth thine hand now and touch all that he hath, and he will
curse thee to thy face."--_Job i. 11._
It is the first scene of the human drama; the staging is in an earthly
Paradise; perfection is written on everything animate and inanimate. With
but one restriction man roams through Edenic beauties, a being "good and
very good," happy and holy. His communion with God is unbroken; fountains
of love are opened in his heart as he beholds the beautiful mate at his
side. Our wildest imaginations cannot estimate the glories of that
life-morning; but behold the Serpent. He utters his first words in the
scheme of ruin, and it is a slander against God. "Aha, He knows if you eat
you will be like He is--knowing all things, be as gods; He is not treating
you fairly; the case is misrepresented. You will not die, but you will be
wise. Why does He keep back such privileges from you?" As a result of this
slander, the Paradise is lost. Flowers, fruits, peace and plenty are
exchanged for weeds, briers, toil, sweat, suffering, death.
Again we find his impudent presence on the day Job is offering sacrifices.
Reading between the lines, we can imagine a conversation like this: "You
here? You are looking for some pretense to discount My people; you say
none are good--all hypocrites. What do you think of My servant Job? What
have you to say about him?"
"Oh, of course," says the slanderer, "you have him hedged around--blessing
him continually. It pays Job to be good; just take away your special care
of his material welfare and see--he will curse Thee to Thy face."
An artist once painted a picture of the human tongue in a way to represent
his conception of how the "tongue of slander" should appear. It was long,
coiled like a serpent, tapering at the end into a barbed spear point; from
each of the papilla, scarcely visible, was a needle point, from which
oozed a green, slimy poison. The slandering tongue is "a fire, a world of
iniquity--it defileth the whole body--it is set on fire of hell."
The slanderer is no respecter of persons; he rakes and scrapes the
uttermost parts of the earth for victims: king and peasant, rich and poor,
priest and prophet; living or dead suffer alike when once this vile,
inhuman spirit touches them. Bacon said: "Calumny crosses oceans, scales
mountains, and traverses deserts with greater ease than the Scythian
Abaris, and, like him, rides on a poisoned arrow." The winds of the
Arabian desert not only produce death, but rapid decomposition of the
body; so doth slander destroy every virtue of human character. The
cloven-hoof slanderer, like the filthy worm, leaves behind a trail of
offal and stench though his pathway wind through a bower of earth's
sweetest flowers. A writer has said: "So deep does the slanderer sink in
the murky waters of degradation and infamy that, could an angel apply an
Archimedian moral lever to him, with heaven as a fulcrum, he could not in
a thousand years raise him to the grade of a convict felon."
"Whose edge is sharper than a sword; whose tongue
Out-venoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
All corners of the world; kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous slander enter."
Iago is said to be the greatest villain in fiction or history; the
revolting crimes of Herod--slaughtering the innocent--does not compare
with Iago. Herod saw in the Man Child a possible rival, and blinded by
jealousy and ambition, he becomes the most heartless murderer--of all
times. But what was the crime of Iago? Slander! With no object in view, no
advantage to gain, and too much of a coward to make an open charge, he
slanders by insinuation the beautiful Desdemona until the enraged Othello
strangles her to death.
How can we reconcile this base passion in human character, as slander has
no other avenue of expression? It is unnatural, inhuman, and hellish. The
wolf and tiger devour to satisfy hunger; the vulture eats and fattens on
rotting carcases, but the slanderer does neither. With the blood cruelty
of a savage beast, the degraded appetite of the scavenger, the destroyed
victims of fiendish passion only intensify and burn, but never satisfy the
slanderer. This spirit was never born among men; its origin is the region
of the damned, where hunger gnaws, thirst fires, lust arouses, revenge
consumes--but satisfaction is unknown. The hot breath of slander comes
from a bourne where dead hopes spring up eternal.
The caption of the chapter denominates the Devil as the arch slanderer; we
use it because there is no word of sufficient strength to convey the idea;
"arch" fails to convey the whole truth in this case. Archangel is an
intelligible term, as there are many of high order; there is, however, but
One slanderer. Just as he is the "father of liars"--propagating all
lies--his relation to liars does not admit of comparison. He slandered
from the day of his fall; he is the father of slanderers. Whether it be
circulated in the "submerged world," the quiet circles of church life, or
among the "Four Hundred" of fashion--it is a deflected arrow from the one
great quiver.
No being--holy men, angels, or the Son of God--can escape the tongues
dripping the venom of slander through the subtle incarnation of that
fountainhead of every evil suggestion or insinuation. Whatever destroys
happiness, creates doubt and suspicion among the people, ending in
litigation, divorces, and murders, fulfills the mission of slander. The
caldron from which exudes this vile stench--filling all the earth--is
seething and boiling in the Bottomless Pit, or wherever the throne of his
majesty--the Devil--is located. The society of earth will never be free
from the poison of evil-speaking until the Archslanderer is arrested,
chained, and located in the penitentiary prepared for him from the
foundation of the world.
XII
THE DOUBLE ACCUSER
"Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about
all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his
hands, and his substance is increased in the land."--_Job i. 10._
"Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and
the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down,
which accused them before our God day and night."--_Revelation xii.
10._
When we consider the Diabolus character--his strength and opportunity,
whereby he visits his vengeance upon a weak, susceptible race, we can
readily understand that his make-up would be far from complete without a
continuous outflow of slander. But his courage and audacity stand out in
glaring relief when we find him an Accuser. It does not require large
intelligence or bravery to be a slanderer--only baseness of character--but
to be an accuser, face to face with false charges, especially in the
presence of One who has power over all things, reveals an impudent bravery
that dazes the judgment.
When questioned of God about his presence among devout spirits--as they
were assembled for worship--he answered in the manner of a guilty boy:
"Just going to and fro in the earth." Peter tells us that his mission of
going to and fro is of seeking and devouring. He is then reminded of Job's
character--how that this saint is perfect and just; Satan's blighting
influence has not been able to touch and overthrow the aged Job. In his
shrewd rejoinder Satan accuses God of two sins: _partiality and
falsehood_.
Translated into its literal meaning, the language would be about as
follows: "I deny that Job is perfect; but for the protection you have
thrown around him he would be as other men. His pretended piety is
hypocrisy; he serves you because you have blest him with abundance; he has
not fallen into sin because you have hedged him about. If you treated Job
as you treat others, his holiness would soon be about as genuine as mine."
Satan accuses God of protecting His servant and blessing him in material
things in a special and partial manner, viz: "a respecter of persons." But
the fiercest accusation is hidden in his reply to God's question, also put
in the form of a question, and finished by an emphatic declaration: Job is
not the man God said he was; "but put forth Thine hand and touch all that
he hath, and he will curse Thee to Thy face." A being who can stand before
the Lord God, of whom the hosts of heaven sing and shout--he, himself,
once among the number--saying: "Holy, Holy, Holy," and accuse Him of being
guilty of partiality and falsehood--what may _we_ expect from him? The
Word says he accuses the saints day and night.
Observe that he accuses the _saints_, those who are striving in
righteousness. The man who lies, cheats in business, accumulates a
fortune, and lives all the vices without apology is not an object of
malicious accusation. The scandals in select circles cause only a ripple,
even though the offenses occupy much space of the associated press. The
principles of such affairs are often staged as heroes and heroines for the
entertainment of a morbid public taste. Satan accuses the saints; the
presumption is shouted from the housetops: "There is none that doeth good,
no not one."
The saints--every good man and woman--must at some time face charges
against their moral or religious character. This hellish machination goes
on day and night. It is reasonable to conclude that much of the unrest,
depression, and backslidings among the people of God may be traced to this
cause; innocent men and women have not only cast away their hope through
rumoured accusations, but have been driven to desperation and suicide.