PRINCETON, N. J. Shelf.. Division . . . .\^.(i^.r^:r:rr. '^*'*^*^ Section Number '^::::-.2 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library http://www.archive.org/details/footprintsofsataOOread And the Akgels wnicH kept not tpieir first Estate."" Jude i. 6. SATAN CAST OUT OF HEAVEN: [From design by DOEE.] THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN OB, THE DEVIL IN HISTORY. {The Counterjpart of *' God in History.''^) BY EEV. HOLLIS IlEAD, A.M., Late Missionary of the American Board to India ; author of " Qod in Bistcyry ;" " The Falace of the Great King f " Commerce and Christianity;" "The Coming Crisis of the World;" "India and its Feople;" etc. " Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the Devil, as a roaring Uon walketh about seeking whom he may devour." — 1 Pet. v., 8. " An enemy hath done this." — Mat. xiii., 28. NEW YORK : E. B. TREAT, 805 BROADWAY. W. T. Keener, Chicago. Hillier Bros. & Co., Cincinnati. A. L. Baw- CROFT & Co., San Francisco. Randall & Fish, Detroit. Gulp States Pub. Co., New Orleans. 1873. \ Entered according to act of Congress in tlie year 1872, bj E. B. TEE AT, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at WashingtOD PREFACE. . In former treatises, which have been very kindly re- ceived by the reading public, the writer endeavored to illustrate the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God as seen in his wonder-working Providence, and in his no less wonderful works of creation. The following pages are devoted to the great Antagonistic Power, that riots in the Apostasy — that reigns among the children of dis- obedience. We have seen how completely benevolence pervades all the works of the Divine hand — how all the works of creation — all the variations, uses and adaptations of these works, and all the ways of Providence if left unper- verted to work out their own legitimate ends, are instinct with the Goodness of God. We shall see on the other hand, how a great opposing Power, by usurpa- tion the God of this world, has been allowed to try his hand at the management of the affairs of this lower world. We have seen what God has done ; and from what he has done we may very safely infer that the end to be achieved by the Divine plans is one of infinite be- nevolence— that it involves the greatest amount of hap - piness to man, as well as the supreme glory of God. We shall now see what Satan, armed with power, and IV PEEFACE. pervaded by the poison of sin, can do — ^what he is doing and what, if not foiled, he will do. He has been the ceaseless systematic opposer of all good. His chief business has been to pervert the works,. the providences and the grace of God. Malignity, misery, characterize the one system ; benevolence and infinite happiness the other. And never perhaps could we more fittingly call atten- tion to the doings of the redoubtable Hero of our tale. Never was his Satanic Majesty more thoroughly roused to a desperate onset upon the sons of men. " The Devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, be- cause he knoweth that he hath but a short time." Most unmistakably do we trace his foot-prints in the events of the last few years — as the instigator of the Slave-holders' Eebellion : as the prime and successful advocate in the late (Ecumenical Council at Home, of the Dogma of Papal Infallibility ; as chief leader in the late Commune Rebellion in Paris ; and more con- spicuously yet as a true inspiration of the political cor- ruption in New York. Never before did he come down with so " great wrath ;" never were his acts more deter- mined and daring. When in the history of our race were fraud, violence, earthquakes, tempests, murders, intemperance, so rife in our world? The prince and power of the air seems, as never before, let loose to de- vastate and destroy. The rightful Proprietor of this world no doubt permits the Adversary to exhibit the malignity and mischief and final ruin of sin that its infinite evil may be made PEEFACE. V known to the countless millions of the Universe throughout eternity. The vast resources of this world, its riches, honors, learning, associated action and influ ence, manners, customs and fashion, political power, eloquence, poetry and song, are, within prescribed limits, put at his command, that it may appear what wretched use he will make of them ; what misery and de- gradation, what wickedness and destruction of all good and happiness, his rule can produce. These are all sources of power, and are designed to contribute most in- fluentially to the happiness of man and the honor of God. We shall see, as we proceed, what utter perversion the god of this world has made of all these elements of power and influence. How he has perverted every blessing of Heaven and made it a curse. The task proposed in the present treatise is to trace, within certain limits, the foot-prints of the great Enemy of all good, that we may, by witnessing the handiwork of his mahgnity among the sons of men, perceive by way of contrast the strange benevolence of God, and be constrained more and more to admire the goodness of that wonderful Being whose purposes are all formed in benevolence, and all whose working is characterized by the same good will to man. A few topics will serve as an illustration of our thought. It will be sufficient to inquire what engines for evil and mischief, in the hands of sin and Satan, have been false religions ; wealth ; learning ; the arts ; science ; what use has been made of governmental power — of fraternities and associated actions — of men's 71 PEEFACE. amusements and recreations ; how he has but too often perverted and embittered the domestic relations — perverted the Press — scourged the race with intemper- ance, war, and by an endless variety of diseases, pes- tilence and famine, the sure consequences of the apostasy as entailed on a suffering race. Indeed, how he has opened on a defenceless race the real Pan- dora's box, and done all he could to extinguish the last ray of hope and happiness in our sin smitten world. We have largely explored that great antagonistic system of sin and misery which the great Adversary has set up in our world, and by which he has impiously confronted the rising empire of our Immanuel, contest- ing, step by step, every scheme of advancement ; and, where he cannot "rule," determined, by a wholesale perversion, to " ruin." The author takes pleasure in acknowledging his indebtedness to several eminent writers, and if credit is not always given, his apology is, that, as he haa drawn from his copious notes in the preparation of this volume he has often found himself unable to identify his authorities ; many of the notes being jottings made years ago, and often not credited to any particular source — and perhaps without quotation marks. They were noted down as mere memoranda, without the inten- tion of retailing them in this manner through the Press CONTENTS. [For full Index see close of book.] I The Devil the God of this World,— Who is he ? — Wha,t is he ? — ^Where is he ? — His mental, moral and physical powers 17 n. Magnitude and Mischief of Sin, — ^The cause of all human woe — Why it is permitted — What hath sin done ? — ^Its effect upon divine and human government, and our relation to God — Men- tally—Morally—Socially 42 m. The Devil in JBible Times, — Before the deluge — ^In Old Testament times — He turns the nations of the earth to idolatry — In New Testament times — His corruption of the Church 58 IV. The Devil in the Early Christian Church. — Its persecutions and martyrs during Apostolic times and the Reformation — Corruption and priestly usurpation 78 V. OOhe Devil in War, — The sacrifice of life in an- cient and modern wars — Statistics of Christian na- tions— War debts of different nations 96 VL War — Continued. — Its untold evils — Modern wars — Their wholesale destruction — ^Demoralizing ef- fects— The duty of Christians 123 Vn. Intemperance, — A stronghold of the Devil — • Its influence on labor, industry and morals — Its cost of money and life — Statistics fi*om England, France and America 151 Vni. Intem^perance — Continued. — Its physical, yiii CONTENTS. PAOB mental, and moral effects upon the race — The author of the saddest calamities on land and sea, and in the everyday walks of life 179 IX. The Perversion of Intellect. — ^Mind the prime mover of all action and power — ^Literature, science, history, music, and their sad perversions . . . 194 X. The Perversion of Wealth, — Money a great power in the hands of Satan — Cost of sin, pride, ambition, luxury, extravagance, war, rum, tobacco, etc 215 XI. The Perversion of Wealth, — Continued. — Modern extravagance — ^Expense of crime, amuse- ments and false religions 242 XTT. OOhe Perversion of Wealth, — Continued. — Regal and aristocratic extravagance — Great estates — Temptations of riches — Protestant extravagance and waste of wealth in matters of religion 263 XTTI. The Perversion of the Press. — Periodical Press — Religious Press — The Press catering to frauds, corruption, licentiousness and infidelity — Romance, fiction, music and song 292 XIV. Satan in False Religions, — Their origin history and philosophy — Their relation to the one true religion- 314 XV. False JReligions, — Continued. — Historic reh- gion — Progressive revelation — Christianity a religion for man : 337 XVI. Modern Spurious Religions, — Their prac- tical tendencies and results — Influence on character, society and governments , 353 CONTENTS. IX PAGB XVn. Popery the Great Counterfeit.— Great truths which Rome has preserved, yet perverted — Resembling Paganism 369 XVJLLi. False Meligions —Romanism. — How indebted to Paganism — ^Festivals — Monkery — Ro- sary— ^Idolatry — Purgatory 387 XIX. Momanism — Continued. — A non-teaching Priesthood — ^No Bible — A persecuting Church .... 403 XX. False Religions — Jesuitism. — Character of the Fraternity — Jesuits in America — Their spirit and pohcy unchanged 419 XXI. The Devil in Mian, — His appetites, aspira- tions, capabilities and susceptibilities perverted .... 436 XXII. Satan in the Marriage Relation. — Sanctity of Marriage — ^Its vital relation to Society, the State and Church — ^Easy divorce fatal to them aU 457 XXm. The Devil in '' Latter ODimes."— Some of his most recent doings — The late Civil War — Com- mune Insurrection in Paris — ^The Devil in New York —Riots of 1863 and 1871— Tammany Ring— Frauds — Modern Infidelity 474 XXIV. Yet Later Demonstrations of the Devil, — Crime in New York — Profanation of the Sabbath — Opening Hbraries — ^War upon, the Bible — Upon our common schools — Frauds — Licentious literature 503 XXV. The Remedy.—" The restitution of all things " — The final and complete conquest — The usurper deposed and cast out forever — The earth renewed — Eden restored — The universal reign of righteousness and peace 520 THE DEVIL THE GOD OF THIS WORLD WHO HE IS, WHAT HE IS, WHEEE HE IS — ^ATTEIBUTES AND CHAKACTEEISTICS — CAPABILITIES OP LOCOMOTION — HIS MENTAL, MORAL, AND PHYSICAL POWEES — HIS WILES AND DELUSIONS. It is a delightful task to follow the footsteps of a friend, to meet everywhere marks of his favor, and to be cheered by the kind words of his welcome. But not so when we fall in the wake of an enemy. His presence speaks no cheer, and he leaves behind him no marks of favor. In tracing along the line of this world's history the good hand of God, we feel we are in company with a Father and a Friend ; yet with one that worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. All his purposes originate in the exhaustless fountain of his love ; and in their sure execu- tion and infinite benevolence is the end of all his working. And though it is a delightful truth that there is no being in all the universe that can frustrate these purposes, yet it is equally true that there is another being in the universe of great power and of mighty intellect, who, though not infinite or eternal, is allowed to exercise a very great con- trol in the affairs of the world. And so universal and controlling is his influence that he is called the " god of this world." The notable personage in question is known by a great variety of significant names. Among these are Apoliyon, 18 THE rOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. the Destroyer, Lucifer, Son of the Morning, or the Morn- ing Star, denoting his exalted station ; the old Dragon, Serpent, or unclean spirit ; Satan, or the great enemy ; Belial, or destitution of all goodness ; Tempter, Beelzebub, and the Prince of Devils ; Enemy, Accuser of the breth- ren, and a Liar. He is also called Sinner, Murderer, Ad- versary, Beast, Deceiver, Angel of the bottomless pit. Prince of Darkness, Lion, going about seeking whom he may devour. The Devil the God of this World. — The term, God of this world, most obviously implies that the Devil acts a very conspicuous part in the affairs of this world — that, at least, during the apostate condition of our race, he reigns here — has a wide dominion over the affairs of man. It will certainly have the merit of being a very jpracticcH theme, to trace, as we may be able, the footsteps of this monster king; to inquire into the extent and character of his dominion that we may see where his great strength lies. Such considerations will readUy show what our world would at once become if this great empire of sin and Satan were destroyed, and all things allowed to return to their proper and primeval use, as they would be if sin had no dominion. We shall therefore make it our business in the following pages to mstitute, at least, a partial research into the records of his Satanic Majesty's kingdom, that we may see what desolations he hath made in the earth ; and that we may catch a glimpse at least of that perfect joy and peace and prosperity which await our earth when this vile dominion shall be no more. TVe rely on the promise that the reign of sin shall come to an end, that the earth shall yet return to her Eden state, and Emanuel, as Proprietor and King, shall reign forever. Li the present volume we shaR attempt some matter- of-fact illustrations of the Empire of Sin as it has from THE DEVIL THE GOD OP THIS WOELD. 19 the beginning been set up in our world by the Great Master Spirit of the apostasy. Since Satan has, by usurpation on his part and by permission on the part of the rightful King, become the god of this world, we may expect that the empire over which he exercises his dire- ful dominion will be covered with the footprints of his rule, and that we should everywhere discover the out- goings of his power. We cannot look amiss for the miserable ravages with which he has covered the earth. The rightful King has seemed for a time to give up to the Devil the earth and all its resources, man and all his susceptibilities, faculties, and opportunities for good, that it may be seen, by way of contrast, what a perverter, what a destroyer of aU good this great adversary of man is. Or we might perhaps more accurately define our sub- ject to be the Hand of the Devil in History, or the converse, the palpable antagonism of the Hand of God in History ; the one a rule of infinite wisdom and good- ness, controlling all things for the final and eternal good of man ; and the other a rule of evil, of malignity, only working out his final and complete ruin. There is nothing which our great adversary has not monopolized or perverted, or in some way turned to his own account. Learning, science, history, poetry, music, or the power of song, have all been more or less brought into subserviency to the great adversary of all righteous- ness. Maxims, anecdotes, songs, amusements, customs, manners, fashions, all exert a controlling influence over the human mind. But these Satan has managed to turn very much to his own account. And besides this monop- oly and perversion of things, which, if properly used, would be productive only of good, he has originated of his own certain great colossal systems of error and mischief by which he has enslaved the minds of millions for a long 20 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. ' series of generations. Such are systems of Idolatry and false Eeligions ; and certain great and small Fraternities, as the Society of the Jesuits, the Illuminati of France, the Friends of Light, and all kindred associations which are the strongholds of modern Infidelity. We shall also trace the foot-prints of th i Devil and the horrid reign of sin in Wae, in the dreadful ravages of Intemperance, in the fascinating paths of Theatrical Amusements, in the vile haunts of Licentiousness, and in the vitiating, ruinous practices of the gambler. Pride, extravagance, ambition, love of r\easure, and all kindred practices may in their place be I rought to illustrate our general subject. And especially shall we trace the foot- steps of our Foe in the wide-spread and almost universal desecration of wealth. Money is power; and no other intelhgent being seems more fiill-f to appreciate the extent of this power. Who is the Devil ? — But befoi s we go into the matter of the Devil's doings let us come to personahties. Who is the Devil ? What is he, and wh to is he ? We owe it to an enemy to treat him with all dut courtesy. In dis- coursing of a friend we have regard to hx3 name, position, history, not overlooking his antecedents and ancestry ; and we owe much the same consideration to an enemy. We seek a personal acquaintance, not being willing to condemn even an enemy unheard, not even our Arch- enemy. If we can find no redeeming traits in his char- acter on which to expatiate to his advantage, or which go to extenuate his universally bad name, or any right doings to atone for doing evil, only evil and evil con- tinually, yet we may find something in his origin, an- cestry, and antecedents of which even his Satanic Majesty may be proud. Of his name, or names, we can say nothing iE. hi** favor. All seem agreed, as we have seen, to call hird '-^y THE DEVIL THE GOD OP THIS WORLD. 21 bad names. True, he is often called an angel, but not in a connection to make it complimentary. He is called jhe fallen angel, the angel of the bottomless pit, the messenger of evil. The title, though honorable in itseK, seems in this case retained rather as a bitter remem- brance of what he once was. It recalls his origin and former position. He was an angel ; Lucifer, the Son of the morning, the Morning star. No title Hke this most honorable one can convey to this fallen spirit so burning a remembrance of the past. We know very httle of the apostasy and fall of Satan beyond the mere fact of his mortal sin and expulsion from heaven. He is the Prince of those angels who " kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, and are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." With admirable union of pathos and sublimity has Milton represented the fallen angel, exclaiming : Farewell, happy fields, Where joys foreyer dwelL Hail, horrors, hail Infernal world ! and thou, profoundest Hell, Beceive thy new possessor ; one who brings A mind not to be chang'd by place or time. Though miserable and mischievous, and fully set to do evil, even to the destroying all good from the face of the earth, blasting its fruits, spreading disease, deforming the fair face of nature, obhterating, if possible, all thought of God, all emotions of gratitude, all piety, all good ; yet we are not to suppose our adversary is necessarily yet perfected in misery or mahgnity, or that he has yet reached the chmacteric of his power to do evil. Though not on probation, but " reserved in chains," held under restraint by one " stronger than he," yet we are to regard him as still advancing, still maturing in every wicked way 22 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. — ^in intellect and physical power, and in downriglit ma- lignity and hatred of God and of all good, filling up the measure of his iniquity, and preparing for a final and desperate onslaught on the children of men. This view would seem sustained (at least the idea that devils are not yet perfectly miserable) by the prayer of the " Legion " that Christ would " not torment them before the time " — that he would not cast them into the •' deep," the pit of their final and perfect torment. What is the Devil ? — Do you ask again who this Devil is and what he is ? We answer, he is the father of Hes, the arch- deceiver, the tempter, the destroyer of all peace, all purity, all righteousness. But has he power to con- trol the human w ill ? Has he any power that man can- not resist ? We think not. " Resist the Devil and he will flee from thee." " God will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able to bear." Though there be no end to his devices, allurements, temptations, the will of the tempted is left free. The wiles of the Tempter may be never so seductive, they have full power to resist. But here arises a very practical query. It refers to the whereabouts of our common Foe. Can we flee from his presence ? Can we shield ourselves from his cunning devices ? He is not absolutely omnipresent, as he is not omnipotent. Yet he has a wonderful ubiquity. He may be superintending afi'airs in his Sodom, in London or New York, and, apparently at the same moment, be supervising the doings of his minions in his Gomorrah^ in India or China. Either by his agents, or by his own presence, transported thither as by lightning speed, he may, for all practical purposes, be in each and every place at the same time. By his wonderful facilities of loco- motion he has a sort of omnipresence. Like as the angel Gabriel, who, at the "beginning" of Daniel's prayer, THE DEVIL THE GOD OF THIS WORLD. 23 received a commission to go, and " being caused to fly SAviftly," stood in the presence of Daniel before lie had closed his supplication, having passed through a space to us infinite, so may this fallen angel, the " prince of the power of the air," go from world to world, or move from one portion of our globe to another with the celerity of i light. We are not to suppose he has, by his moral apostasy, lost either his physical capabilities or his intel- lectual capacities. Like man he is morally depraved, but not physically or mentally. And though he is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, such is the power of his intellect, and such the strength of his arm and his capabilities of locomotion, that, when compared with those of a mere man, he is seemingly both. Where is the Devil ? — But is it asked, where is the Devil and all his countless hosts ? We might answer, -he vs nowhere in particular, but everywhere in general. His place, his fiinal destiny, is the bottomless Pit. He is " reserved " for that great prison-house of the universe, under sentence of death eternal, yet for a season a prisoner at large — " going about, to and fro, walking up and down in the earth," " seeking whom he may de-vour " — a wretched wanderer, homeless, a hopeless outcast from his heavenly home, and only waiting in fell despair his eternal doom. The appellation, "prince of the power of the air," would seem to give plausibihty to the idea that Satan and his countless " Legion " of apostate spirits inhabit, or rather roam, in the aerial regions — not in the void space aboitt any one globe, but about the worlds ; and more especially, arf?und about this fallen planet of ours. His original home was in heaven, the dwelhng-place of holy angels, where he was an angel, high and holy " The great Dragon was cast out, that old Serpent 24 TEE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." "I saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven." And, as his business seems to lie very much with this, our world, and the inhabitants thereof, it would seem not unnatural that his roaming-ground and homeless home should be in the aerial regions. But this is of no conse- quence. Such are his locomotive powers, and such the number and activity of his host, that for all purposes of mischief he is everywhere and in every place at the same time — nor is the devil omnipotent, yet is possessor of tremendous powers. In Egypt he wrought miracles. Through magicians, sorcerers and soothsayers he did wonders. He had power over plagues and diseases to afilict men, as in the case of Job. And to a limited ex- tent— though not "within narrow hmits — has he power over the elements of 'natm^e to do manifest and mighty mischief. And perhaps his greatest power is not that which he has over the bodies and the temporal interests of men. He has a controlling power over the human mind. He presents motives and uses devices which are often all but irresistible. His Attributes. — And again, the devil, though very wise, is not, as we said, omniscient. Angels are of a vastly higher grade of intellect than men, and the chief of angels is no doubt superior to the common order. Satan took rank with the higher order, and we may not suppose his intellectual cahbre lessened because of his moral perversion. He has probably more than made up in craft and cunning and malignity what he lost in moral virtues. His fierce and desperate warfare with Heaven and Heaven's King, has, we may suppose, quickened nis intellect, drawn out the latent resources of his mind, and, as fired by pride, hate and revenge, he has ever since his THE DEVIL THE GOD OF THIS WORLD. 25 apostasy been intellectuallj growing into a more com- plete maturity of all that is devilish. The sort of om- nipresence we have supposed, impHes a corresponding omniscience — not absolute, but so far in advance of any- thing belonging to the wisest of men, as to make him seemingly omniscient. And what a terrific attribute is Satan's knowledge ! We can form some estimate, though but a very imper- fect one, from the sad perversion of some great human intellect. We can scarcely conceive of a greater curse to be entailed on a community than to have living and acting in it a man of strong and highly-cultivated intel- lect, who should use it only to devise mischief and to de- moralize its citizens. And the greater the magnitude and activity of his intellect, the greater the amount of the mischief he would do. His influence, his position in society, his power over the young, would be very much in proportion to the strength of his mind. But combine in one all the great minds of any age, and the aggregate, we suppose, would scarcely exceed the intellectual powers of the Wicked One. Or, if this seem to much too concede in mere mental strength, there are other considerations which give him all the advan- tages we have supposed. We refer to his superior power and his singular ubiquity. What could not our wise wicked man do if he were clothed with Satanic power, and could, for aU practical purposes, act in every place at the same time. His Cliaracteristics. — It must be conceded at the outset that we have very little direct knowledge respecting the mode of existence and the status of this Prince of the devils. The Bible abundantly recognizes the existence of such a being, and that he is man's great and chief ad- versary ; the tempter to sin, and the enemy of God and man. But of his origin, and how he became the enemy 26 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN, of Heaven and earth, and why, the Bible gives little or no direct knowledge. Yet we are left in no doubt that there is such a being, and that his character is alto- gether and irretrievably wicked, and that his devices, acts and agencies are all on the side of evil. For our popular notions of Satan we are mostly indebted to the fabulous theology of the Middle Ages, as embodied in the great poems of Milton and Dante. Yet of his existence and direful doings and vast powers for mischief we are left in no doubt. He was created — was the workmanship of the Al- mighty hand. When he began to exist, we do not know. He belonged to a race known as angels, created somewhere far back in the endless ages of a past eter- nity, we know not where. He was one of, or rather he was the chief of those angels which " kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation and were re- served in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." Peter declares that " God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell." And Isaiah, perhaps in allusion to the same event, exclaims, " How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" Now these passages teach three things : First, the existence of wiched angels. They are prisoners " reserved in everlasting chains unto the judgment of the great day ;" and their present habi- tation is "hell" — "under darkness." Second, this was not always their condition. They were once in " heaven," " their first estate," and " their own habitation." The expression, "their first estate," more properly is ren- dered their principality, and refers to government or do minion rather than to residence. " Their own habita- tion " seems to have been some abode peculiar to them ; and the two expressions are supposed to indicate that these angels exercised dominion in some distant part of THE BEVHi THE GOD OF THIS -PTOELD. 27 creation. Some planet, some great globe, some one of Hhe "many mansions" in our "Father's house" may tiave been their principality — " their own habitation," where they governed as subordinate rulers. This, indeed, seems to be God's method of government in our world. He rules by proxy. And, for aught we know, this me- thod may be observed in other spheres and continued in the world to come. Perhaps this is intended when it is promised that " we shall judge angels," " sit on thrones " and wear " crowns." But, once more, tJieir fcdl was their sin. The expressions " kept not their first estate," " left their own habitation," " fallen," and " sinned" are all employed as equivalents. Once they were " Angels," now they are "fallen." They voluntarily abandoned the heavenly abode to which they were assigned, or threw up the government with which they were intrust- ed ; and this was their sin. This, then, was the first apostasy, the beginning of evil, the origin of " Satan and his Angels." There was a time, then, when there was no evil undei the sun ; when no cry of agony went up to God, whee no foul spirit obtruded itself upon the vision of Heaven. Lucifer had not fallen from his first estate then. When did he fall ? When did his dark shadow first touch the glory of eternity ? When did his harsh voice first break upon the universal harmony ? Satan is older than man. When God spoke and obe- dient worlds leapt into being, when the Maker ht the suns on high, Satan was. He saw this new-born worla emerge from chaos ; and at that sight, angel that he was, chief " son of the morning," perchance he led " the morning stars " in their grand song. Old as he is, he had a beginning. God created him ; not as he is now, a devil. No : he was originally an angel ; and Hke every thoer angel, he came from the hands of his Maker a 28 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. pure and holy being. He worshipped the Almighty, paid his vows, and joined the countless multitude about the throne in their ■ serenade to Jehovah. But he fell from his high station. He sinned, and lost his original purity. Of the angels that God made, some fell, and thereby became devils. There was a revolt in heaven, and Satan headed it. There was a secession, and Satan was the first to preach it. But it was a disastrous rebel- lion. All engaged in it were overwhelmed and cast down to hell. When this important event occurred is not known on earth — how long after their creation, or how long before the melancholy meeting in Eden, has not been revealed.* When Adam sinned, sin was already in the world. He had a tempter. But not so Satan. He committed the -jirst sin ; and that with no one to lure to transgression. Man was weak — of the earth, earthy. Satan was an angel in heaven, in the presence-chamber of the High and Holy One. Both were under law ; both on trial ; both free agents. Yet man was at a disadvantage, in being exposed to the wiles of one so superior to himself in power and intellect. The whole angelic race, an " innumerable company," " thousand thousands, and ten thousand times ten thou- sand," who ministered to the Ancient of Days, were on probation — free to sin, free to maintain their integrity. But how could a holy angel ? What temptation could be strong enough to turn him from the presence of infi- nite Love, and from his seat among the blessed ? We may raise the question, but we cannot answer it. When sin was first conceived in the mind of Satan there was nothing in all the Universe to suggest it — there was no temptation, no occasion for it. Everything was in har- * Lectures on Satan, by Eev. Thaddeus McEae, to whom we ac- knowledge obligation. THE DEYIL THE GOD OF THIS WOELD. 29 mony with holiness. The thought came from within. It originated in himself. But here all is chaos. An evil thought presupposes an evil mind. But his mind was holy then ; how could it conceive an unholy deed ? We cannot grasp the conception of a holy nature effecting an tmholy thing ; and how was that nature so transformed as to transgress, is what defies our understanding. An angel one moment, a devil the next — ^thisis the Sphinx of history. The particular sin by which the apostate angels feU is supposed to have been pride. In the book of Job the angels are called " morning stars ;" and Isaiah calls the proud king of Babylon the same. Paul, also, in the text, speaks of pride as the condemnation of the Devil ; that is, he represents pride as the sin for which he was con- demned, and, therefore, by which he fell. Pride, then, is the first and oldest sin. Some suppose that Satan's pride was aroused by the appearance of our world in the society of heaven. He saw man's mysterious glory, and feared that his own would be eclipsed thereby ; and hence resolved on man's ruin, Milton, however, in his great epic, supposes that Satan's pride was excited by a decree of God that aU the angels should worship the Son ; and says that Satan " could not bear that sight, and thought himself impaired." He then describes this proud spirit as stirring others up to war : " Will ye submit yotir necks and choose to bend The supple knee ? Ye will not, if I trust ' To know ye right, or if ye know yourselves Natives and sons of Heaven." A burden and disgust in heaven, they were expelled. That was no place for them. God cast them down to Jiell. Tartarus is the original word. It is used in the Greek classics to signify " the lowest and darkest pit in the uni- 30 THE FOOT-PBENTS OF SATAN. verse." It is doubtless " the outer darkness," spoken of by Ckrist, and " the bottomless pit " oi the Apocalypse. Where it is I do not pretend to say. It may be in those regions of utter emptiness, the huge " void," or " vasty deep," far away from sun, and star, and moon, and world, unpenetrated by Hght or eye of heaven — one wild wilder- ness of darkness and airless, viewless, endless night. In that abysmal sea " hell " may have a local habitation — " prepared for the devil and his angels ;" and there they are reserved in chains of darkness unto judgment. This does not mean that they are in close confinement. They are bound over as criminals, have their limits, and await the extremity of their punishment. It is common to represent Satan as black, and the place of his abode as the " blackness of darkness forever " — " in everlasting chains of darkness," expressions symboli- cal of the character, malignity, and misery of Satan and of his infernal hosts. White is the symbol of purity, hoHness, joy. The saints in glory are "purified and made white ;" their " garments white as snow ;" " rai- ment white as the light." The author already quoted draws a befitting portraiture of the hlaxikn£ss of Satan's character. Now, Satan is aU blackness, and he is therefore all woe. I think this view is not usually prominent in our ideas of the Devil. We regard him as the mighty fallen, majesty in ruin, something to be admired and feared. We leave out his awful grief, his wild despair. But let us re- member that, being the most wicked being in existence, Jie is therefore the most miserable. It is all night with him, but no rest. He has not lost his nature — his mind, his will, his desires, his sensibilities ; but these only serve as instruments of his torture. He wishes, but he never realizes ; he pursues, but he never wins ; he thirsts, but he never drinks. He is proud, but he knows that he is THE DEVIL THE GOD OF THIS WOKLD. 31 not esteemed. He is ambitious, but lie knows lie can never rise. He plots, but his schemes always return upon himself. With dire hate he forges chains for the people of God, but ere long those chains are put upon his own limbs. The Almighty meets him in every snare, and doubles his confusion. His very struggles sink him deeper into lower depths. Mighty mourner ! There is no respite to his torments. He is ever consuming, yet never consumed ; always dying, yet never dead. His chains are always on him. The tempest is perpetually raining fire and brimstone upon his pain-struck head ; while all of hell's troubled minions are unceasingly wail- ing harsh thunder in his ears. His very eyes weep blood, and every groan he heaves is big with horror. Blank and cheerless despair is all that is before him. He never smiles. Grim woe never relaxes its hold upon his brow. His only joy is that of the murderer who falls upon his victim, and, tearing out his heart, grates his teeth over its agony. He never sings. The only notes he can utter are imprecations against his Maker, curses upon his victims, and the maniac howl of remorse. And the only music he hears is the echo of his own hollow moans, the widow's sigh, the orphan's curse, the prisoner's groan, and the wild " shriek of tortured ghosts." And such he would be were there "no heaven for him to envy, no God to condemn him.'* Satan is the great deformity, possessing every abhor- rent attribute. He is suj^erlatively wicked, and therefore superlatively hateful. And he is hated, he is abhorred, he is execrated. God the Father hates hini, God the Son hates him, God the Spirit hates him, the seraphim hate him, the cherubim hate him, the angels hate him, the saints all hate him. He is the loathsome wretch that heaven has spewed out of its mouth. His Physical Foioers. — But if we pass to the physiccd 32 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. power of Satan we shall have no less occasion to note and deplore his fallen greatness. In power he was once an angel of the first magnitude. His apostasy did noth- ing to impair, but only to pervert his great power. He is now just as potent for mischief as he once was mighty for good. He is completely and hopelessly demoralized, but not weakened in either physical or mental power. Yet his bounds are set, which he cannot pass. " Thus far shalt thou come and no farther." He could not harm a hair of Job's head except by God's permission. The assaults on Peter were suffered for a time to test him. Satan was allowed to " sift him as wheat," that he might be the better prepared for his future mission. We have referred to the Devil's wonderful power of lo- comotion, how he travels with lightning speed from world to world, " perhaps outstripping thought, certainly sur- passing the lightning's glance." Like Gabriel, who in a moment of time transported himself from a heavenly abode into the presence of Daniel, this mighty angel can secure a hke ubiquity. And then his power to work.I He can transform himself into any guise he chooses. He seems to have appeared to Jesus in the wilderness as an angel from heaven. And it is in such a disguise that he achieves some of his most notable victories. And, after the manner of unf alien angels, as in the case of the "man Gabriel" who appeared unto Daniel, and the an- gels who visited Abraham in the plain of Mamre, Satan is wont to appear, too, in the human form. Simply this power of transformation indicates a physical ability far transcending the Hmits of mere human power. Again, Satan has power over ordinary matter, which he fails not to use as the great enemy of man. We know how the good angels unloosed the chains that bound Peter in prison, and rolled back the ponderous iron gates and set Peter free, spite human hatred and civil authority. THE DEYIL THE GOD OP THIS WOELD. 33 Endowed with a like superhuman power, the great fallen angel does like mighty deeds. He has power over the elements. He caused the lightning to fall on the herds and flocks of Job, and raised a storm in the wilderness that overthrew the elder brother's house, wherein per- ished all his sons and daughters. And the same Arch Demon instigated the Sabeans to come down on Job's servants, who were attending his oxen ; and the Chalde- ans to fall upon the camels and slay the drivers. He brought fire from heaven to slay his shepherds, and a whirlwind that destroyed his children. Nor did he spare the person of the righteous patriarch. He was not only permitted to reduce him to poverty and to bereave him of his dearest friends, but he afflicted his body with grievous sores so as to make himself a loathing to him- self and to all about him. And what shall we say of those throes and spasms of nature — those anomahes or aberrations, " creation groan- ing and travailing in pain " — which appear in the tempest, in the desolating storm, the tornado, the thunder-bolt, and the terrific earthquake and the volcano, if they be not the fearful utterances, the infernal demonstrations and acts of the "prince and power of the air," the old, serpent in Eden, the spoiler of all beauty^ peace, and. happiness; of him who changed Paradise hito a pande- monium. But for sin and the rule of Satan there would; have been none of these disturbing elements, these de- vastating conflicts. "That black- winged tempest that, comes up from the wilderness, sweeping down the hills, ^ pihng up the forests and breaking the great oaks as if they were pipe-stems ; that frightful storm at sea, churn- ing the waters into foam, ploughing the surface into ugly chasms, and throwing the mariner upon his knees to hft his prayer to the blackened heavens; that scorching simoon that sweeps over the plain, leaving the earth over 3 34 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. wMcli it travels a crisp and a cinder ; and that appalling plague that visits some great city, dragging its slain to the sepulchre by thousands ; — did not Satan preside at their birth, give them all their fury, direct their desolat- ing track, and call them back like hell-hounds from the chase, only at the bidding of the Almighty ? And what means that wild alarm that seizes the sons of men when the hurricane presents its wrathful brow, when the earth rocks under foot, when the lightning shoots along the sky, and when the awfiil thunder utters its voice ? Comes it not from the consciousness that the fiend has slipped his chain, that the very spirit of evil is abroad?" Or recur we to the demoniac possessions in the days of our Saviour, and what power had the Evil One over the bodies of those possessed I They were rent, torn, pros- trated with convulsions, cast into the fire or the water. They "wandered among the tombs and desert places, cutting themselves and crying in the most dolefal man- ner." A woman is bowed together, and can in no wise lift herself up, whom Satan had bound, " lo ! these eight- een years." And to Paul was given " a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him." And yet more daring than all, he lays his polluted hands on the body of our blessed Redeemer. During the temptation the Devil took up Jesus and set him on a pinnacle of the Temple. See this fiend soaring away with the Saviour through the air, " like an eagle with his prey ;" then to an exceeding high mountain ; afterwards to the cross. After suffering much from the Evil One during His pilgrimage, at its conclusion, for the most gracious of purposes, the Son of God was surrendered completely into his hands. "This is his hour and the power of darkness." From the accursed kiss of Judas to the exit from the tomb, Jesus was under the unrestrained power THE DEVIL THE GOD OF THIS WOKLD. 35 of Satan. There was not one act of mercy shown him through that whole period. It was all undiluted cruelty. Some diabolical power was the presiding genius of the whole tragedy. That seizure, that trial, that mockery, that scourging, that nailing, that laughter, that exultation over the agony and death of the Saviour — what was it all but pandemonium turned loose for a season and hold- ing high carnival about that cross ? Awful spectacle ! Behold the Son of God deserted by friends, forsaken by heaven, hanging there as the object of the earth's relent- less enmity, and the target of hell's damnable artillery. It is all over now ; Satan has done his worst — ^he has murdered the Lord's Christ. " When we see this malignant foe travelling through space with the rapidity of thought, putting on the dis- guise of an angel, breathing pestilence and plague upon whole districts, driving the tornado across seas and continents, hurling frightful fireballs from heaven, and smiting the bones of men with disease, cutting the chords of life and hurling men into the abyss of eterni- ty," we shudder at a power only second to omnipotence. And yet how much more audacious and Heaven-daring that assault on God's beloved Son ! That dark hour of the betrayal, of the arrest, of Peter's denial, of the cry of crucify, crucify him, and of the last ignominious scene on Calvary — these the malicious triumphs of the Wicked One. Here was power. But it was the " power of darkness " — the " Spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience." His Deceptions. — That the Devil works wonderously, is readily conceded. But can he work miracles ? He does many things that confessedly surpass aU human agency. What else are we to judge of the doings of the " wise men and sorcerers" of Egypt? They so nearly imitated the miracles of Moses and Aaron as to seem to do the 36 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. very same things. If tbej were not miracles they were something that required a miracle to refute. If we call them delusions, how then shall we refute the skeptic when he claims the same thing for the wonders done by Moses and Aaron ? To the multitude that looked on, the rods of the magicians as really became living ser- pents as that of Moses did. It is said that the magi- cians did in like manner as Moses had done, and their rods too became serpents. Both would alike appear mi- racles. The difference was that the sovereign power of Heaven interposed and gave the triumph to his servant by making Aaron's serpent devour those of the magicians. As in the wilderness, the devil was allowed to exercise a power altogether superhuman. All along the Hue of revelation we meet with sorcerers, diviners, magicians, who profess and are believed to work miracles ; and the Scriptures speak of them as do- ing these things by the instigation and aid of evil spirits. In the contest of Elijah with the prophets of Baal, at Carmel, there is the appearance that the false prophets expected the interposition of a supernatural power in their behalf. They leap upon the pile, smite their breasts, and cut themselves with knives. They are ter- ribly in earnest, seeming to expect the aid of a higher power, which, under other circumstances, they might have reahzed. The New Testament favors the behef of this extraor- dinary power of the Devil. "There shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders." In describing the great apostasy, Paul says : " Whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs and wonders." The "two-horned Lamb," John saw, " doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven, and deceiveth them THE ROmSH PRIESTHOOD AND MIRACLES. 37 that dwell on the earth by those mirades which he had power to do." And may we not here, without scruple, concede to the Romish priesthood all they claim q^ the score of working miracles ? We yield to the Papal Hierarchy the unen- viable pre-eminence of being the great Apostasy, the antagonisms of the true religion, by which our great Adversary has followed up the hue of its development, from the earliest Patriarchs to the present dispensation of gospel grace, fiercely resisted every aggression of the Truth, provided its tactics and accommodated its schemes of attack and defence to the times, to the state of the na- tions, and to the manners, customs, habits, progress and civilization of the world. And if this be, as intimated, the " master-piece " of the great Apollyon, we need not wonder that he has engaged in its support his mightiest powers. Accordingly, the Romish clergy claim the power to work miracles. We do not deny it. It is in full accord with the descriptions we have of the Man of Sin. The three " unclean spirits " that went out of the mouth of the Dragon, and out of the mouth of the Beast, and out of the mouth of the false Prophet, are said to be the " spirits of devils," " tvorking mirades." We take the Beast here to represent papal Home, and the false Pro- phet, (or High Priest,) to represent the same after being divorced from the temporal power. The Pope, in ceas- ing to be king, is not less the Prophet and High Priest of the Papacy, and as such may be expected to work miracles. And as the end approaches, and this last stronghold of the Devil is assailed, and totters to its fall, we need not be surprised to hear of popish miracles re- vived. For when, if not now, when our Great Ema- nuel is riding forth to final victory, conquering and to 38 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. conquer, should our Arch Foe put forth his great strength ? Though the order of the day, at the present writing, seems rather to be Jesuitical craft, insidious infidehty, claiming to be an advance on Christianity, and the " deceivableness of unrighteousness." His Delusions. — And we mistake, if our great Enemy has hot a darling interest in modern spiritualism, mes- merism, table-movings, and mysterious writings and rappings. We are not disposed to question that things are done and said, messages brought and revelations made, which transcend all ordinary, if not all possible human agency. But by whose agency are these things done ? The character of the phenomena in question, the agents and the results are the safest criteria by which to decide whence they are. Who do these things, and what do they do ? What bearing have they on Divine Revela- tion?— what truth do they inculcate or confirm, or what sin rebuke ? — what reform favor ? — what benevolent or philanthropic purpose has ever been subserved ? After making all due allowance for magnetic phenomena, pulsations of electric currents, spasms of electricity, and the many unused, and, to the mass of men, the yet hidden and unappropriated agencies of nature, we have not hesitated to concede that wonders may be wrought which can be accounted for on no such principles — which exceed all possible human agency, or the action of natu- ral forces — superhuman, miraculous, if you please. They are the work of Spikits. But of what spirits ? Here we are, nolens volens, thrown back on the old-fashioned cri- terion, " The tree is known by its fruits" What good has yet come from the exercise of these unwonted powers ? " On the other hand, it has disturbed the peace of many a home, broken many a heart, and driven many a victim to the mad-house. Under its spell many a poor SPIBITUALISM AND MESMEEISM. 39 sinner has lost the anchor of his hope, found himself riding on a wild sea, ' driven about by everj wind of doctrine,' and has been finally wrecked forever. It is notorious that spiritualists lose their reverence for God's Word and the house of worship. To them the raps about the house are superior to the voice of the Saviour, the unintelhgible scribbling of a medium is superior to the Word written by inspiration, and communion with a table better than the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Let the thought enter your mind that spirituaHsm is true, and a crevasse will open upon your soul that may bear you down to perdition. Cotton Mather records of him- self, during his connection with witchcraft, that he was ' tempted to atheism, and to regard all rehgion as false.' And so it ever is. It is hard to handle fire and not be burned. Let such foundhngs alone. Give them time, and they will destroy themselves. A thousand such meteors have blazed along the pathway of our pilgrimage, and have gone out in darkness ; but the Sun still shines as he shone thousands of years ago." We do not despair that these great powers, now so perverted and subsidied in the service of the wicked one, shall yet be rescued from the hands of the Usurper and restored to the rightful owner. We lack no assurance that " all things " — all powers, all resources, all influences and agencies, shall " work together for good to them that love God " — shall contribute and contribute only to the peace, the purity, the progress and final blessedness of the race. There is to be a " restitution of all things;" not of the moral man only, and all that pertains to and favors his intellectual and moral improvement, his present happiness and his unending fehcity, but of the 'physical man, and all that pertains to him as an earthly being, and in this his earthly home. All the resources and agencies of nature shall subserve his highest physical well-being. 40 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. The earth shall be fertilized, beautified, and made a fit and happy residence of a renovated and happy race. It shall become a Paradise. The creation shall no longer groan and travail in pain. No barrenness, no desert, no deformity shall mar the beauty or detract from the fertility of the new-born earth. The throes of the tem- pest, the tornado, the earthquake and the volcano shall be felt no more. But whence this stupendous transformation? Has some mighty angel come down and wrought such an amazing renovation ? No ; nothing of 'the kind. It is only the withdrawal of the disturbing, desolating, cor- rupting, demorahzing forces of sin and Satan. The Prince of the power of the air, the God of this world, is simply divested of his power, bound in chains and cast out. The Paradise you now see is but the earth healed of her wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores, by the sim- ple recuperating force with which nature is endowed. Lacerate your body, torture your flesh as you will, the moment you withdraw the causes of the infliction, the recuperative forces at once set themselves at work to repair the mischief ; and, if not hindered, soundness will inevitably be restored. So this earth, and all that pertains to the natural world, were smitten with the corroding wounds of sin. " Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe." And for ages the deadly wound has festered and cor- roded till the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it ; but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. But what is the remedy? Simply to remove the cause ; and the great diseased, putrefied body of nature SIN BANISHED AND THE EAETH A PAEADISE. 41 will restore itself. Sin and all its ruin once banished, and he that hath the power of sin cast out, and the earth and all that is earthly would revert back to its primeval condition, as it was left by the hand of creative Power when he pronoimced all to be " good." n. THE MAGNITUDE AND MISCHIEF OF SIN. WHY SIN IS PEKMITTED — THE CUNNING AND CEAFTINESS OP SATAN — SIN THE CAUSE OF ALL HUMAN WOE — WHAT HATH SIN DONE? — SIN AS EXHIBITING THE POWER OP SATAN — SIN AS AFFECTING DIVINE GOYERNMENT — HUMAN GOVERNMENT — SIN AS AFFECTING OUR RELATION TO GOD — MENTALLY — MORALLY — SOCIALLY — SIN ENTAILED UPON THE HUMAN FAMILY — SIN CHARGED WITH ALL EXISTING EVIL. It would seem befitting, at this preliminary stage of our discussion, to take at least a cursory view of the magnitude and mischief of sin. If we could comprehend how great an evil sin is, we could form some just estimate of the real power of the Wicked One. If his power lies in sin, then we can only comprehend how great an Enemy the Devil is by our knowledge of the evil of sin. But before entering upon the discussion proposed, we may indulge in two general remarks which may serve to reheve certain difficulties that sometimes arise on this subject ; the first furnishing a reply to the query why sin is 'permitted to exist at all, and the other furnishing some plausible hint as to the peculiar cunning and craftiness "For im the da,' thou eatest thereof, thou shal' surely die." — Gen. ii., 17. FOOT PRINTS OF SATAN— THE FIRST TEMPTATION. [From design by DOBK.] liBST SEE WHAT SIN CAN DO. 43 of t'ne Devil in so adapting the forms of sin to times and circumstances as to make his wiles doubly dangerous. Why Sin is Permitted. — The design of God seems to be to allow sin to have its perfect work — to let it be seen first what it can do, that its evil may be developed and made manifest to the universe, in all the length and breadth, and height and depth of its unutterable evil. Hence God first permits \:he perversion of all things. He allows Satan to show what he can do first ; and then the rightful Owner comes in and shows to the universe how much higher, nobler, holier purposes he can achieve by the same means. The Press, for example, God allows to be perverted, that it may be seen what the Enemy can do with this mighty agency. And so of wealth and intellect, position and influence. They are mighty agen- cies for good ; yet as perverted they are as stupendous agencies for evil. Their history is little else than a history of their perversion. And human governments, what stupendous agencies for good are they ! Yet, in the administration of political power, how little a portion has, heretofore, been on the side of virtue and freedom, to say nothing of a true religion ? They have done little else than to favor despotism, fraud, and oppression. First, it is allowed to be seen what sin can do through these mighty engines of power; and then shall it be made to appear what mighty auxiliaries human govern- ments may become to the progress of joy and peace, of truth and righteousness in the earth. And so with the arts and sciences, and all the facilities for human com- fort and advancement. They are as potent for evil as they are capable of being, and eventually shall be, for good. God works for the universe and for eternity. The tri- umph of sin is but for a moment ; the reign of righteous- ness is eternal. Hence the more conspicuous and bane- 4.4: THE FOOT-PEIKTS OF SATAN. ful the temporary reign of the Usurper, the more distin- guished and glorious, bj way of contrast, the eternal reign of the one great Creator and Proprietor. And eternal ■will be the aspirations of praise, power, and glory to the great Three in One. The Cunning and Craftiness of the Devil. — Any system of falsehood or wickedness, in order to success among men, must have commingled with it more or less of truth. It must be adapted to the times, to existing re- forms, to the taste and fashion of the age, to the progress of the arts and sciences, philosophy and civihzation ; to the progress of truth and of the true ReUgion. A sys- tem or practice that might have served the Devil's pur- poses most effectually in one age and state of progress and of society, would be quite too gross for another age and condition of the world. We may expect, therefore, that the perverted wisdom oi the Arch Fiend has not overlooked the great doctrine of adaptation. We shaU find that in every age Satan has craftily had regard to what the world could bear — though sometimes he has overtasked his subjects and they have rebelled and thrown off his yoke. We shaU see as we proceed how much the world has consented to bear as the bond-slave of the Devil. It wiU suffice at this point that we take a general sur- vey of our subject. We shall see how our Arch Foe, the great antagonistic Power, aims at a wholesale perversion, a vile monopoly, in aU human affairs — in aU conditions of humanity. Sin tJie Cause of all Human Woe. — But for sin man had been happy, the earth been unscathed by the dire deso- lations that now cover it ; and the animal creation been spared the bondage of corruption to which it is now subjected. But sin has entered our world, and defaced the beauty and marred the happiness of all things. Man THE EVIL OP SIN INCOMPREHENSIBLE. 45 has felt it. The earth has felt it. The whole inanimate world has felt it. Every hving thing has felt it. The whole creation — everything that pertains to the world, " groaneth and travaileth in pain together." What hath Sin done ? — Our inquiry relates to the mag- nitude and mischief of sin. The picture must be incom- plete. It would be impossible, in any range the human intellect can take, to gauge the dimensions of the evil that must follow the violation of the divine law, or depict a thousandth part of the woe that sin has entailed on the family of man. But the creature of yesterday, man knows but httle of either the beginning or the end of a thing. Seeing but a Httle portion of a system even while it is in progress before him he often caUs good evil, and evil good. He sees there are great evils in the exist- ence of sin; but how great and how far-reaching he cannot comprehend. As far as he feels these evils, or sees them acting about him; or as far as his limited mental telescope can scan the effects of sin in relation to the Divine Government or man's final destiny, he may have many correct and appalling ideas of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, yet be far, very far from being able to return a full answer to the inquiry. Nay, not the wisest, highest, hohest angel in heaven can so comprehend the consequences of the apostasy, both in relation to God and his government, and man and his destiny, both in time and eternity, as to return a fuU and satisfactory response to the question. What hath sin done ? We shall not attempt a task from which the wisest of men and the highest among angels have recoiled. Yet we may say some things — may say much — may say what ought to make us weep over the desolations of sin as we view its ravages on things about us, and give us an utter abhorrence of it as being the abominable thing that God hates. 4:6 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. The Magnitude and Mischief of Sin in its Relation lo the Divine Government. — Sin is defined to be a transgression of the divine law. But here again our idea of the mag- nitude of the evil of sin is graduated bj our appreciation of the value and im'portance of this law. For the guilt of violation depends on the character of the law, the objects at which it aims, and the character and design of the Lawgiver. The law of God is, like its Author, 'perfect. It is an expression of God's will towards man, and a declaration of man's duty to God. It is not the basis of our duty — that lies further back in our relationship to God and to our fellow men. He is our Father, and we are in virtue of tlds relation bound to love and serve him. We are his by creation and preservation, and we are, on account of this relation, under obligations which no power can abro- gate, to yield humble obedience and sincere worship. The whole human family are our brethren, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, and we are again on this account bound to a mutual love. Here is the foundation of that branch of the law which enjoins our duty to our fellow- mortals — " Love thy neighbor as thyself." In like man- ner we have the basis of the branch of law which regu- lates our conduct towards God, in the command, " Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." We may regard the law, then, rather as an expression or declaration of duties which have their foundation in the very nature of things — in our relations to our God and to one another. There is nothing arbitrary — nothing unreasonable in the Divine law — nothing that could be otherwise, without palpable injustice. And not only does the law protect the rights of God and man, but it secures man's best interests. Holy, just, and good, it contemplates the holi- ness of its subjects ; secures the rights of God over his creatures, and the rights of man to man. And it is good, THE DIVINE LAW THE LAW OF THE UNIVEESE. 47 benevolent in all its designs, and fitted to secure to man the greatest good, and to God the greatest glory. Sin is a violation of the rights of God to be honored, and of man to be blessed. It does violence to heaven and earth. It would strip the crown from the head of the Sovereign of the Universe, and cover man with shame and eternal ruin. Nor would the mischief and ruin of sin stop here. The divine law is not limited to the government of a few millions, or hundreds of millions of mortals. It is the law of the universe ; the law of heaven ; the standard by which actions are weighed, and motives and thoughts judged throughout God's universal dominions. It is the law of God, a righteous, holy, and altogether beneficent Being — a law which, if sustained, secures God's glory and the highest good of the universe ; if suffered to be violated with impunity, God is dishonored, and aU his creatures left with no security for their future well- being. Sin is then an attempt to destroy the empire of God, and blast forever the happiness of aU his rational creatures. Nor does it matter here that the puny arm of man cannot reach the eternal throne. This is its nature and tendency. It would do all this but for the interpos- ing arm of Omnipotence. In view, then, of what sin would do if not restrained — in view of what sin has done in breaking up our happy relationship with our God, and severing the ties of brotherhood to our fellow men, we may exclaim with lamentation and woe, what hath sin done/ Sin as Affecting Human Governments. — ^We might limit the inquiry for a moment to human governments. What has sin done here ? Who shall allow to pass before him the dread panorama of human despotisms — of civil corruptions, frauds and oppressions — of nations 48 THE FOOT-PBINTS OF SATAN. abased and trodden down by the relentless heel of tyranny, and not discover the unmistakable footprints of man's arch enemy ? Civil government is a tremendous power either for good or for evil. Vain are our hopes of seeing the world es- sentially reformed — much less of seeing it brought uader the power of a living Christianity while governments and civil rulers are arrayed in opposition. Essential and effective as individual piety is to the world's renovation, this is shorn of its great strength, and in a degree neutrahzed and made impotent by bad governments and corrupt rulers. When the wicked bear rule the people moarn. The wicked walk on every side when the vilest men are exalted. Fraud, corruption, oppression. Sab- bath desecration, immorality of every name and grade, irreligion and infidelity, all in sure and fearful succession, spread their blight over a people as the inevitable result of a bad government. As often as a good king arose in Israel, and a good government followed, religion pros- pered and every good thing blessed the nation. While, as surely, on the return of a wicked ruler, and a corrupt government, the wicked rose on every side, and demoral- ization, discord and misery followed. Once ensconced in the chair of state, the Devil's power is supreme. It now becomes the confederated power of money, talent, patronage, position and civil authority. Such power has our Adversary had during the entire reign of the apos- tasy. And such power does he still wield, almost un- challenged among the nations of the earth. To dislodge him here will be the last great consummating act of a triumphant Christianity. Or, again, Sin as Affecting our Belation to God. — Taking a wider range we may put the thought thus : How has the intro- duction of sin affected our relation to God ? What has the Devil done here ? When man was innocent God was HOW SIN HAS ALIENATED MAN FKOM Rio dOD. 49 his friend. But sin put enmity between God and his creature, man. It has aUenated man from his Creator. It has interrupted the free current of the golden stream of benevolence between heaven and earth. God is still love — as infinite in benevolence as he ever was. Yet by sin man has turned his back on his God. He has said, " Depart from us, for we desire not a knowledge of thy ways." God is our father ; but we have made ourselves rebellious, prodigal, abandoned children. Sin has inter- vened between us and our God. The separation, in our present probationary state, is temporary and partial. But it is in the nature of sin to produce a complete and final separation — a continual provocation that God would withdraw his fatherly love from his ungrateful child ; and it is sure to incur this awful end as soon as the present probationary state shall end. The moment the prodigal son turns his back on his Father he cuts himself off from the privileges and prerogatives of his Father's house. But if he persevere in his alienation he forever forfeits his Father's favor. Out off from him and what are we then ? As poor, as miserable, as forlorn and wretched as it is possible for guilty creatures in hell to be. What a fearful onset then has sin made on our relations to our God! But this thought will be further illustrated if we con- sider more at large the Devil's agency in the history of our world. This will appear first by contrast. There was a time when sin was not in the world. Man was innocent and happy, and the world unharmed and un- moved by sin. But the fatal deed was done, and what a change! Innocent man became guilty; happy man, miserable. The seeds of every moral disease took root, soon to vegetate and bring forth the poisonous fruits. The earth was filled with violence. Envy, hate and murder, ambition, pride and coveoutness, sprang up in 4 50 THE FOOT-PKINTS 01 SATAN. the now polluted soil, and developed themselves in all their vile luxuriance. Everything, as it came from the hand of God, was " good." Nothing wanting to make a virtuous species happy ; nothing that in its remotest tendencies should not conduce to the unalloyed happiness of all who should be bound in allegiance with their God. All was good. In the constitution of the physical world, all was adapted to make man holy and happy. Everything is so con- structed as to make man the constant recipient of the Divine favor, teaching him, on the one hand, his depend- ence, and on the other, presenting fresh motives every moment why he should love and serve the Author of all good. Everything is good if not perverted and abused. The five senses were not made to-be organs of pain or misery. They often become such ; but the purposes for which they were made are altogether benevolent. Nerves were not made to vibrate with pain, but to communicate joy to the gladdened soul. Hands were not made to fight and destroy, but to do and communicate good. The design was that they should minister to some wise and benevolent end ; and they are in their conformation ob- viously better adapted to serve a good purpose than a bad one. And who would assert that the eye is more suited to behold deformity than beauty? or the ear better adapted to discord than harmony ? or the hands or the feet designed rather for mischief than good ? And so man's mental constitution — all was constructed right. All here too was " good." There is not a single faculty, desire or susceptibility of the mind, which, if rightly employed, would not conduce to the well-being of man. Take reason, judgment, imagination, or love of happiness, or desire of excellence, (called when per- verted, ambition, as the love of happiness is called self- ALL THINGS GOOD IN THEMSELYES. 51 love, or sheer selfishness,) and you will see enough in their originals to indicate the benevolent purpose for which they were given. Sadly as they are perverted now, they were, as the workmanship of infinite Beneficence, alto- gether good. The same may be said of the moral construction of man. He was made altogether capable of loving and honoring his Creator. Every passion, every affection is, when not perverted, just what it should be to secure the greatest happiness of man and the honor of God. There is no need of the creation of a single new faculty or desire, but only to give a new direction to those already existing. If then the world and all therein, and man and all that pertains to him, were made morally upright — just as it should be in order to secure the greatest happiness of man — whence then the 'present state of the world, and the present condition of man? Whence the thorn and the brier ? Whence the violence that covers the earth ; the wars that spread such devas- tation and death over the habitations of man, and the perversion of almost everything from a good to a bad use ? God hath caused the earth to bring forth ; to supply the wants and to minister to the comfort of man. But how are these bounties perverted, and made to minister only to hurtful lusts, and to become instru- ments of destruction to man. For example, the earth brings forth grain for the food of man. Bread is the staff of life — the sustenance of by far the greater por- tion of the human family. It is a natural production of the earth, and when used in its natural state, it is alto- gether good. But how different when perverted and abused. Instead of bread it becomes an intoxicating drink — and what then? No longer the staff of life, it has become the rod of oppression and of death. And who can measure the poverty, the misery of this one 52 THE FOOT-PRINTS OP SATAN. perversion ? If sin had done no more, what has it done here? Measure, if you can, the tears it has caused to be shed ; the poverty and degradation it has pro- duced; the widows and orphans it has made; the gene- rous hopes it has blasted ; the virtuous affections bhghted ; the noble intellects ruined ; the tender ties severed ; health ruined ; souls destroyed. All this is simply the work of sin. The world is good ; the things of the world, good ; the enjoyment of them proper and good. But the jperversioTi- — ^here lies the sin. And what has not been perverted? Bodily organs, mental faculties, moral powers, how have they all been turned out of their legitimate use and prostituted to evil ! The judgment is perverted ; reason abused. The imagination sent forth on the wings of the wind to re- vel amidst forbidden objects, and the affections es- tranged and fixed on objects unworthy and degrading. What, then, has sin not done? Its withering desola- tions are spread about us on every side. Yea, they are . within us. Nothing has escaped the blight and mildew of the curse. Man and beast, and every created thing, animate or inanimate, are sufferers from sin. Man suf- fers from his fellows, suffers from his own hands ; the victim of his own passions ; the author of his own ruin. And how often are the brute creation the helpless vic- tims of man's cruelty and oppression. But we cannot gauge the magnitude of the evil of sin. Its poisonous streams have gone out unto the ends of the earth. Nothing has escaped the contagion. But we return to a more restricted view of our subject and consider — Sin as affecting our Social Belations. — The magnitude and mischief of sin in its relation to man as a social be- ing, has not only alienated man from his God, but it has estranged man from his fellow-man. It has filled the SIN IN OUE SOCIAL EELA.TIONS. 53 heart with pride and ambition, envy and distrust. It has kindled in the human breast an unhallowed fire. It has set man against man, friend against friend, brother against brother, and — must we say it? — Christian against Christian. It has loosed the tongue of slander, and filled society with backbitings, jealousies, heartburn- ings, hatred and strife. What a world of evils — a Pan- dora's box unsealed — the world set on fire by that little member. So mischievous a thing is the tongue, that an inspired one says : " He that offendeth not with the tongue, the same is a perfect man." But the tongue was not made for slander and mischief. Its design is most benevolent and wise. But for the organs of arti- culation, we should be little removed from the brute. But its perversion, how sad, how universal! An ene- my hath done this. Again, it is sin that has destroyed cmfidence between man and man. How is it that we must virtually sus- pect a man till we have, either by an acquaintance or otherwise, gained testimonials that he is an honest man. Whence our distrust, if it be not that sin has so pol- luted the very fountain of moral principle that we are obliged to assume that the streams are polluted. We have by our general experience so often seen what is in man, that we assume, as the rule, that man is bad, and then wait to learn by experience and further ac- quaintance what are the exceptions to this general rule, i.e., whom may we receive to our confidence. In law, every man is regarded as innocent till proved guilty. But in our social economy, we are obliged to reverse this order. And why ? Why not receive the stranger on the broad ground that he is a man, your brother, and worthy of your undoubting confidence ? Why wait to know whether you can confide in him who is bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh ? 54 THE FOOT-PKINTS OF SATAN. If sin had done no more, what mischief originated from this one fact, the want of confidence. In our dis- trust we may not recognize the great principle of brother- hood in the family of man. It is said of the Bedouin Arabs, those wandering tribes that traverse the deserts of Arabia, that they admit every stranger to their hospitahty on the ground that he is a man, and thereby a brother. They neither know nor wish to know anything further of him till they have dis- charged the common rites and duties of hospitahty, which they do on the score of relationship. This they will do irrespective of moral character. Acting on this principle we always should, but for the fatal distrust of sin. But here they are obliged to stop and act on the same principles of distrust as other men do. Sin Entailed upon the Human Family. — But sin is more than a general or a social evil. It has an individuahty, entailed, in the direful curse, on every son and daughter of Adam. It has despoiled man of his innocence, sunk him in ignorance, degraded his nature, and blighted his happiness. " It has multiplied our cares, originated our sorrows, awakened our apprehensions, and let loose upon us the fury of evil passions." It has filled the heart with discontent, the mind with uncertainty, and the body with pains. Does man sigh ? — ^is his soul made sick by the withering stroke of affliction ? — do his tears flow ? — is he now bending over the death-couch of some beloved one ? Ah ! it is sin that has opened these avenues of woe and made man to mourn. But for this feU destroyer man would have always been happy. He would always Hve in the sunshine of God's countenance, and sorrow and sighing he would never know. Now he groans, being burdened ; now he looked for good and beheld evil ; now he hves all his life long subject to bondage through the fear of death. SIN THE FOUNTAIN OF ALL EVIL. 55 What a grievous thing then is sin ! It has closed the issues of Ufe ; it has opened the avenues of death ; it has nerved the arm of rebellion against the eternal throne ; it has shut out the light of heaven, and turned away the smile of the Divine complacency from our dark and wretched world ; in Eden it filled the happiest of mortals with shame and remorse, and entailed on the race the bitter fruits of death ; it made a brother a mur- derer ; it filled the earth with pollution and crime, till indignant Heaven drowned the old world with a flood of waters. Again, sin provoked the Almighty wrath on the cities of the Plains. The fiery indignation of Jehovah consumed them from the face of the earth. Wars, famines, pestilences and plagues sweep over the length and breadth of the earth, and cover it with tears and anguish. These are thy ravages, O sin ! And again, see what sin has done in the introduction and establishment of False Religions, especially of Idolatry. But we reserve this topic for a future chapter. Sin Charged with all Existing Evil. — In all its working it has worked evil and only evil continually. It has ruined our world; it has despoiled it of its beauty, shorne it of its glory, and covered it with natural and moral deformity ; it has spoiled man — made him a prey of every evil propensity and every corrupt passion. It is the author of every discord that disturbs the peaceful flow of life ; of every tear that falls ; of every disappoint- ment, loss or bereavement we suffer ; of every pain we feel. How grievous, hateful, ruinous ! If it be the mother of all evil, it must be the abominable thing which God hates. For, as the Controller of all events, if he thus make the fruits of sin bitter and grievous, if he make the way of the transgressor hard, we may be sure that sin is the thing his soul hateth, and that it will be followed by 56 FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. his indignation and wratli ; and if not repented of and forsaken, with his eternal displeasure. We have charged all evil on sin. We now charge all sin on the Devil. He decoyed our first parents into transgression, and is thus the author of all the calamities which have befallen our hapless race. In our biU of indictment against his Satanic Majesty, we charge upon him all the oppression ; all the fraud and corruption ; all the licentiousness and intemperance ; all the wars and their untold desolations ; all the natural evils that afflict a suffering race ; all social, civil and do- mestic evils that changed our world from a Paradise to a pandemonium ; all the perversions of money, time, talent, influence, custom, fashion, and indeed all that makes our world differ from that beautiful, pure, holy, happy world where first dwelt the happy pair, basking in the sunshine of Heaven's smiles, fit companions of angels, and in de- lightful fellowship with God. But shall not these halcyon days return, when the Usurper, as god of this world, shall be bound in everlasting chains and cast out forever ? Then shall the earth be transformed, and reassume its primeval beauty as it came from the hand of its Creator ; then shall man be reinstated in the image of his God, and righteousness, and peace, and heavenly felicity shall forever dwell in the abodes of men. The Son of God came into the world that he might destroy the works of the Devil. The triumph of our blessed Redeemer on the earth will be the final overthrow of Satan and the complete annihilation of sin. Every advance in our world of a genuine Christianity, every Bible translated, circulated, and piously read ; every Christian school established; every gospel sermon preached ; every Christian principle, grace or virtue in- culcated, is so much done toward the undermining and the final abohshing the empire of him who has the power SIN SHALL CEASE TO HAVE DOMINION. 57 of sin. Give the gospel free course and let it be glorified in tlie accomplishment of the work for which it was sent, and sin shall cease to have dominion, and the prince of the power of the air shall no longer be served as the •^od of this world, but shall be cast out forever. m. THE DEYIL EST BIBLE TIMES. THE DEVIL BEFORE THE DELUGE — m OLD TESTAMENT TIMES — HE TUENS THE NATIONS OF THE EAETH TO IDOLATRY — THE DEYIL IN NEW TESTAMENT TIMES — HIS CORRUPTION OF THE CHURCH — PAPAL APOSTASY. But let iis pass from what the Devil is to what he does, and we shall see little occasion to change our estimate of his real character, or of the relations he holds to the sons of men. The merest glance at the doings of the Devil, as detailed in the history of the world, indicates the controlling position he holds in the affairs of man. He began in the family of Adam. And " how earth has felt the wound " the direful history of sin doth but too sadly teU. If we could measure aU the sighs and groans and tears — aU the sorrows and woes that sin has inflicted on a suffering race — all the perversion of talent, time, in- fluence, wealth, fashion, custom — all the wastes and woes of intemperance and war — all that comes of murders, arsons, robberies, and crime of every name — ^if we could fathom the depth, and measure the height and length and breadth of all the evil sin has done in our world, we should begin to comprehend something of the woful his- tory of him who has the power of sin. THE DEVIL IN OLDEN TIMES. 59 The Devil before the Deluge. — He had power in tlie ante-diluvial world to alienate an entire race from God. His usurpation and deadly despotism had become almost complete. " God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." The destruction of the world by a flood was God's vindication of his right to govern the world. Tet how soon did the Arch Enemy again seduce man and again overwhelm the world in all the misery and degradation of sin ! He built Babel in defiance of Heaven, as the first great, and the long standing memorial of the apostasy. He soon turned the nations from God unto idols. They that "knew God," no longer "glorified him as God, but changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made hke to corruptible man ;" and soon idolatry and the reign of Satan again covered the earth. Few were the " elect " who bowed not the knee to Baal. The Devil in Old Testament Times. — When God had chosen from among the apostate nations a people that should serve him — a people whom he would make a model nation, and a model church ; when they were as yet no people — were but a few in the family of Jacob — how early was the bitter hostility and the burning jeal- ousy of the Great Adversary aroused to thwart the incipi- ent purposes of the Almighty. And behold the power (not irresistible, but persuasive) of the crafty, far-seeing, mighty Foe. A famine drives the chosen ones into Egypt. And worse than a famine do the wiles of the "Wicked One instigate the Egyptians to inflict on the seed of Jacob. It is more than two centuries of hard bond- age. And when Moses was raised up, that by " mighty works " — by miracles, he should deliver them, how is he at every step confronted, as we have seen, by the Prince of Darkness ; who also had power to work miracles, and, 60 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. if possible, to deceive the very elect. As Aaron cast down his rod it became a serpent. So did the Magicians and the Sorcerers, and the same wonders followed. Yet the greater power was with Aaron. For " Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods." The ten Plagues followed. The first two the Magicians, endowed with Satanic power, successfully imitated. They brought up frogs upon the land and turned the waters into blood. And Math the same wicked persistence did the Enemy pursue the hosts of Israel through the wilderness ; throw- ing every obstruction in their way ; making them a prey to their enemies, and seducing them into idolatry. And when they had become a nation and a church in the promised land, how did he pervert their Kings and cor- rupt their rulers, and thus provoke the Most High to in- flict his judgments upon them ? And again, with a like wicked persistence has he followed the Church in every age since ; the unrelenting foe of everything good ; the abettor and active, malignant agent of everything evil. But we may not pass over this long and eventful por- tion of the world's history so hastily. We never cease to retrace the history of the chosen people, from the time of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage to their en- trance into the promised land ; and then onward through their whole future career. But at every step of their progress we detect the unmistakable footprints of the great antagonistic Power, the prime object of whose cor- rupt soul has been, from the beginning, to thwart and, if possible, to annihilate the Church of God. But if he might not arrest and destroy, he would so secularize, corrupt, and demoralize the Church as to divest her of moral power. Hence we may trace up the record of his doings, as he followed along the line of the true Church with a maUgnant persistency befitting the malig- nity of his nature. How he dared to assail even the THE DEVIL AT MOUNT SINAI. 61 good father of the faithful, leaying a scar on his fair character, bj making him he to Abimelech, king of Gazar, denying that Sarai was his wife. How Isaac was as- sailed and tempted to do the same foohsh thing, and Jacob was made to defraud his brother of his birthright. How Eeuben defiled his father's bed with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Simeon and Levi assist in the murder of the Shechemites ; and how the sons of Jacob, with murder in their hearts, conspire against Joseph. He was sold into Egypt and consigned to a hopeless bondage — a prelude to that galling captivity into which the whole chosen seed were afterwards subjected. This was the hour and power of darkness. The gates of hell seemed to have prevailed against the Lord's Anointed. But the triumph was short. The chosen people, though not without the most persistent audacity and opposition of the Devil, were at length dehvered from their thraU- dom, brought out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, carried dry-shod through the Bed Sea, and con- ducted through the wilderness in despite of combined and most formidable foes, instigated at every step by the wiles of the great Adversary. They pass on and come to Mount Sinai. Here they are to receive the law, a direct Bevelation from Hea- ven ; and thereby to inaugurate one of the most signal advancements that characterize the history of the Church. God now revealed himself as never before ; not by the giving of the Law alone, but by signs and wonders. *' There were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mountain, and the voice of the trumpet ex- ceeding loud, so that all the people trembled." The mountain burned with fire, and there was blackness and darkness and tempest, so that Moses did exceedingly fear and quake. And the Devil trembled. Tearfulness took hold upon 62 FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. him. Here was the power of God — God clothed in ter- rific majesty. The heavens were moved. The thunder and the lightning spake. The trumpet of God uttered its voice. All these were awfully impressive demonstra- tions that God was real — that God was near. And would not the people now and forever afterwards be- lieve and obey and ever own an eternal allegiance to such a God ? Something must be done. Satan to the rescue. And what did he do ? Moses had gone up into the mountain, and a cloud had shut him out from the people. Here he remained forty days and forty nights, conversing with God and receiving from his mouth the law and the command- ments. This was Satan's time. Something must be done. He stirred up the people to distrust Moses, insinuating that he had gone no more to return. He now resorted to wiles not unlike what he did centuries afterwards when God became manifest in the flesh, in the person of our Emanuel. When the people heard him gladly, declaring that "never man spake like this man;" "then cometh the Devil and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved." And, personating their master, the "chief priests and Pharisees," on another occasion, " gathered a council and said : ' What do we ? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him.'" They must in some way bring re- proach and distrust upon the great Teacher, and, if possible, neutralize his teachings. So did the Devil before Sinai. A desperate re- sistance must be made against these new revelations of Heaven, and the advanced dispensation of divine grace. Hence he entered into Aaron, stirring up his jealousy, perhaps firing his ambition to be captain rather than the priest of Israel, and prompting him to seduce the THE DEVIL AND THE KINGS OP ISRAEL. 63 people to idolatry. He made the golden calf, and said, "these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of Egypt." A desperate measure to meet a despe- rate case. An advanced step had been taken on the part of Israel's God. It must be met and resisted by the Adversary. Under the same Satanic influence Nadab and Abihu " offer strange fire before the Lord." When the people murmur and cry for flesh, Miriam and Aaron raise a sedition against Moses. The " spies " make a false re- port of the land and discourage the hearts of the peo- ple. By the instigation of the same spirit, Korah, Da- than and Abiram stir up a rebellion in the camp and disturb Israel. At Mount Hor the people " speak against God and against Moses because of the way." And in the matter of Balaam, and the whoredoms with the daughters of Moab ; and the worship of Baal-peor ; and the cunning trick of the Gibeonites, and how all along no scheme was left untried to turn away the peo- ple from the worship of the true God to idols. Baal and Astaroth, Baalim and Baal-berith, in turn became their gods. And more marked still were the doings of the Devil in connection with the kings of Israel. Saul was pos- sessed of an evil spirit — was sent by it to the witch of Endor ; and finally was made to do many devilish things, and at last moved to commit suicide. The good man David was not beyond the reach of the same Arch Seducer. In the affair of Uriah he yielded to the Tempter, and left on his record an indelible scar of his conflict with the Foe. Solomon, the great and the wise, was a shining mark not to be missed. Through wine and women the Seducer beguiled him, so that " vanity of vanities " might seem to be written on his tomb-stone. With his thousand and one wives and con- 64: FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. cubines, we find him seduced away unto idols, offering sacrifice, burning incense, and doing homage to inani- mate gods. A sad triumph of the Devil over one of the most honored, gifted and favored of men ; the noblest specimen of Divine workmanship among men. But this " Troubler of Israel " ceased not his mischief. Having achieved a signal triumph over one whom God had especially favored, and the nations delighted to honor, he stirs up the successor of Solomon to alienate the Ten Tribes — to divide the nation, to sow the seeds of hate, alienation and rivalry, to weaken both divisions, and thus sadly to impair the influence upon the Gentile nations which this nation, chosen of Heaven, would other- wise have had. And henceforward he goes on doing a double work, tampering with both parties, stirring up jealousies, provoking seditions, rebellions and wars ; any- thing which should tend to weaken, alienate and mono- pohze the influence, the resources and agencies of the chosen people, and divert them from the great, ennobhng, elevating object which Israel's God and every Israelite proposed to accomplish by the national and church organization of this extraordinary people. The first and most obvious result of this division was a disastrous war — the Devil's delight — with a slaughter on the one side of 800,000 men, and on the other of 400,000 ; accompanied by all the distractions, demoralizations, wastes and woes of war. He turns the Nations of tJie Earth to Idd'airy. — ^We may follow on in the track of either of these kingdoms, and we find the Devil incessantly and infernally at work, cor- rupting the worship of the true God, decoying to idol- atry, and always instigating to wars. His most persist- ent and successful aggressions seem, for some reason, to have been in the line of the kingdom of Israel, and reached the cHmacteric of civil' corruption and heaven- THE WICKED AHAB AND JEZEBEL. - b5 daring wickedness, in the reign of "wicked ALab," and his yet more wicked wife, Jezebel. She was the daughter of a heathen prince. It is said of Ahab, " he went and served Baal and worshipped him. And he reared an altar for Baal in the house of Baal which he had built. And Ahab made a grove, and did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him." And having done all he could himself, he did much more by the aid of his yet more wicked wife. For she " made him to sin." The story of Naboth and his vineyard, and Ahab's atrocious murder, well illustrates what the Devil can do with the aid of a wicked woman. In the other line of kings we find a similar climacteric reached in the reign of Manasseh, king of Judah. Ahaz, his grandfather, whose evil nature he seemed to inherit, had prepared the way for his own corrupt reign. " The Devil urged poor Ahaz on, and led and drove and pushed him into idolatry and impiety until he became frantic in his sottishness after the gods of the Syrians." In his hatred of the worship of the true God he closed up the temple and forbid the people to offer sacrifice. And yet deeper was Manasseh plunged in the meshes of Satan's devices. He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, like unto the abominations of the heathen. He " showed himself in every respect a master-workman for the Devil." He built up the high places his father had broken down, reared altars for Baalim and became an open patron of idolatry. He defiled the temple of God, committed sacrilege, " slew righteous men and prophets, and inundated Jerusalem with human gore." Of one who at no great remove succeeded him, historians say, " his palaces were founded in blood, and embellished by rapine. He falsely accused the innocent of crimes that he might condemn them to death, and confiscate their 5 C)Q FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. property." In him the Devil had a man after his own lieart. But the end drew near. Indignant Heaven could no longer endure. Yielding to the instigations of the Tempter, the church had become corrupt, the nation de- moralized, the long-suffering of Heaven exhausted, and the day of recompense had come. The Enemy had seemingly triumphed. Jerusalem was laid in ruins. Her people were carried into captivity. The nation and the church were dissolved. The Temple, the pride and glory of Israel, was burnt with fire, and all the holy things desecrated, if not destroyed. " Thy holy cities are a wilderness. Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned with fire ; and aU our pleasant things are laid waste." " How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people ! how has she become a widow ! She was great among the nations, and a princess among the provinces ; how has she become tributary ! How is the gold become dim ! the most fine gold changed ! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. From the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed." Every sin and transgression, every act of ingratitude and rebellion, which had brought these dire calamities on the nation, were the instigations of the Adversary ; all demonstrations of his eternal enmity against the God of heaven. But there is a " stronger than he," who shall take away the armor in which he trusts — cast him out, and restore the ruins of the fall. Jerusalem shall be built again ; the captives restored, and Zion again become the glory of the whole earth. The Devil in New Testament Times. — The doings of the Devil alluded to in the portion of history under consid- eration, did not differ essentially from his doings in every THE DAT-DAWN — THE MORNING COMETH. 67 age of tlie world. He is, in his very nature, the great perverter and destroyer of all good; the enemy of all hoKness ; the stirrer up of strife and sedition ; the very spirit and essence of hate, envy, and revenge ; a roaring lion going about seeking whom he may devour. But we will pass over the period that intervened be- tween the restoration from the captivity and the coming of the " bright and morning Star," a period replete with the machinations of the Wicked One. Israel had been restored from her foreign bondage, but never fuUy rein- stated, either as a Church or State, in her former glory. The Adversary was too strong for her. He was allowed to enter the fold and trouble Israel, and > paralyze her power, and give her enemies the advantage over her, and the Church Hved as in the wilderness, her horizon growing darker and darker till the " Day Dawn and Day Star " arose. And how then was the Prince and Power of Darkness roused in his wrath as he saw the gleam of light arise from the Star oi Bethlehem. It was the star of hope for a dark and ruined world. It was a Light that should lighten every man that cometh into the world. It pro- claimed liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. The vile Usurper saw in this rising Star of Bethlehem, the Creator, the great Proprietor and Bedeemer of the world coming to vindi- cate his right, to cast out and destroy the Usurper and take possession of this apostatized world. By usurp- ation it had become the domain of the enemy. He claimed to be the god of this world, and his claim had been almost universally conceded. The Babe of Bethle- hem, the Saviour, the Prince of Peace, and the rightful Proprietor came to his own, and none better than the Usurper knew that ere long he should take the kingdom to himself. 68 FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. The eartli had become dreadfully corrupt. The Jew- ish nation had grievously apostatized. Josephus charac- terized the Jews as more desperately wicked than the people of Sodom. Tacitus apprehends the destruction of the world on account of its hopeless corruption. Seneca says " aU is replete with crime. Vice everywhere abounds. While habit daily grows into sin, shame is rapidly decHning. Yeneration for what is good and pure is unknown. Vice is no longer the occupant of secret places, but is made public before all eyes." With such a degenerate, hopeless condition of the world, do we wonder there was among the few reflecting ones a yearn- ing, longing, desperate waiting for a Deliverer ? Pagan philosophy was of no avail. Pagan creeds had failed. Not the few in Judea, not the " wise men of the East " only, were looking for dehverance, and expecting a Deli- verer. For there was among the nations a general ex- pectation that gracious Heaven would interpose and come to the rescue of a suffering race. The Romans were expecting it. The Chinese, the Hindoos, the Per- sians were looking for the " Holy One to appear ha the West." The DevU saw all this, and fearfulness took hold upon him. He saw a " stronger than he " about to come, who should dispossess him of his usurped dominions and cast him out forever. He rose in his wrath. If he could not rule he would ruia. And " woe to the inhabitants of the earth, for the Devil came down unto them having great wrath because he knew he had but a short time." He was allowed sorely to afflict the nations. As the first glimmering of the Day Spring from on high arose the wrath of earth's great Toe was kindled anew ; and earth soon felt the wound. It was a day of trouble. He that had the power of sin and death now broke from his re- straints and was allowed for a little time to scourge the PESTILENCE GOES BEFORE HTM. 69 nations. A deadly pestilence swept over tlie Roman Empire. And the same dread calamity spread over Ethiopia, Lybia, Egypt, India, Syria, Phoenicia ; and over the Greek and Persian empires, and " over adjacent countries ;" and raged for fifteen years. Again this feU destroyer starts out from the ruins of Carthage, and spreads its direful ravages over Africa. In Numidia alone it numbered no less than 800,000 victims. Two years only before the birth of Christ pestilence again walked in darkness over Italy, and " few people were left to cultivate the land." The whole creation groaned and travailed in pain. Now came the dying struggle of the Prince of the power of the air. Or rather it was the fearful beginning of the end — the last desperate onslaught to wrest this world from the rightful owner, and to make it a pandemonium. No ; not the last deadly struggle. The Babe of Bethle- hem is born ; the long-expected Messiah is come. Angels sing " glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men." Waiting saints welcome him as Him that should come, the Light of the world, and its final King. The wise men of the East see his star and come to worship him. While yet an helpless infant in his cradle he is hailed as the incarnate God, the Eman- uel, God with us — " a Light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Israel." And how at this juncture must the Arch Fiend have writhed in demoniac anguish over this newly risen Light, and at length fixed on the desperate expedient. He had a faithful ally in the king. The child must be destroyed ; and Herod became the wicked and wiUing accomplice. The decree goes out to slay all the children of two years old and under, with intent to kill him who was born King of the Jews, and thus foil the purposes of God in the advent of his Son. It was a desperate throw, and no credit to the Devil that it so 70 FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. signally failed. Nor did lie now yield his infernal pur- pose. Though defeated he was not destroyed. As the great Teacher and Mediator between God and man was about to enter on his public ministry he confronts him in the wilderness with a presumption and fiendish impudence peculiarly his own. By three successive temptations, each more seductive than the preceding, the grand attack was made, and the crafty wiles of the Tempter were frustrated. The " Strong Man armed " had proved more than a match for him ; yet he yielded not his infernal purpose. What he could not hinder or destroy, he would pervert or corrupt. Instigated by the Prince of Darkness Pilate and Herod were made friends that they might compass the death of the Incarnate One. And then confederated with Scribes, Pharisees, and priests, and with Judas, into whom the Devil entered, they the more easily con- summated the diabolical deed. When they had secured the crucljixion of their illustrious victim, they supposed they had covered his name with an eternal infamy. No one would believe on a cruvlfied one. Yet the Cross which they counted should be the death-blow to Chris- tianity became the rallying point, the glory, the grand centre of Christianity. Armed with the " power " of a Pentecostal baptism, the invading waves of the new Beligion rolled on from tribe to tribe, from nation to nation, giving no doubtful signs of universal conquest. Though so signally discomfited at Calvary, the Enemy pursued the onward marching hosts with firebrands, arrows, and death ; with a violence which threatened no uncertain annihilation. Ten relentless persecutions fol- lowed ; and nothing but the interposing arm of Heaven saved the Church from a final extinction. The Enemy struck his deadly blow, meaning nothing short of annihi- lation. FOOT-PmNTS OF SATAN— AS SEEN IN THE TEMPTATION ON THE MOUNT. RISE OF THE GREAT APOSTASY. 71 His Corruption of the Church. — The next deadly device was to corrupt the Church. Having failed to destroy, he now set himself to emasculate Christianity of its manly vigor, to divorce it from the power of holiness and make it a secular power. And how the Christian church was corrupted — how the name and the form were retained, yet divested of its spirit and life, let the history of every form of spurious Christianity tell. Side by side has our sleepless Foe contended with the great Captain of our Salvation, intent to corrupt and neutralize, if he cannot arrest the onward progress of Christianity. He carefully watches the progress of civilization, of education, and society — takes note of the spirit of the age, and favors and preaches a Christianity suited to the times. Yet false rehgions in general are rather local, temporary, changing to suit times and circumstances — to meet the mutations of man's changing condition. The great, standing monument of Satanic invention, power, and skill to originate, mature, and propagate a religious system, is the Papacy ; a religious organization embracing 200,000,000 souls ; bound in the chains of an unmitigated spiritual despotism, yet called by the name of Christ and claiming to be Christian. We may pro- bably accept this as the final consummation of what human wisdom and ingenuity, combined with the wisdom and craft of the Great Adversary, could do to put forth a grand religious delusion, a gorgeous, seductive counter- feit of the Christian Church, whose lettering and su- perscription should be those of the genuine coin — a compound and compromise of Christianity, Judaism,. Idolatry, Mohammedanism, and Infidelity, all hashed, and harmonized so as to meet the demands of the reh- gious and the irreligious, of the image-worshipper, the skeptic, and the nominal Christian. It is probably the Masterpiece of the great Anti-Christ, now being rapidly 72 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. revealed and hastening its final consummation, jet per- haps still to undergo modifications to meet the coming phases of a progressive age. Indeed, the forewarning of our divine Lord more than intimated the fierce conflict the Christian Church should, from the very outset, have with her Arch Foe. He should appear clad in sacerdotal robes — claiming to be Christ — sitting in the temple of God, showing him- self that he is God. Most distinctly did Christ fore- warn the early Christians of the formidable Enemy his rehgion would have to encounter — and this too in its most incipient beginnings. " There shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, inasmuch, that if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." And what are these but miracles ? And those " three unclean spirits like frogs," which John saw, " come out of the mouth of the Dra- gon, and out of the mouth of the Beast, and out of the mouth of the false Prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and the whole world, and gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." From the beginning, from the cradle in Bethlehem to the great and dreadful crisis, the final decisive battle, the warfare shall go on. And again, " he doeth great wonders, so that he mak- eth fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the Beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the Beast. And he had power to give life unto the image of the Beast, that the image of the Beast should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the Beast should be killed. POLITICS AND POLITICIANS. 73 Need we seek further for an identification of his Sa- tanic Majesty with that great persecuting power, that mystery of iniquity, that deceivableness of unrighteous- less, which we are wont to identify as the scarlet Beast or the great Antichrist ? Again, we might enlarge on the Devil's doings in the political arena. The world's history is largely made up of the wars and commotions and political intrigues of that wisdom which is from beneath. Politicians have too often been content to serve the Devil rather than their nation or their God. And what use this great Prince of politicians has made of his liege subjects, the despotism, oppression, demagogism and chicanery of most governments is a living, burning stigma on the fair face of humanity. But we shall leave with others to gauge, if they can, the dimensions of the Devil's activities in the civil affairs of the world — how governmental power is largely used to favor his nefarious schemes — how politicians are too often but his willing dupes, his faithful, ready and efiicient coadjutors in carrying out his designs in the corruption and ruin of man. As a temporal prince, and in his control of the social, civil and secular affairs of the world, he has a broad and open field, and never loses an advantage to execute his malignant purposes. £^et it is rather as a spiritual prince, it is m relation to the spiritual interests of man that he displays his great wisdom and power. False religions are Satan's mas- terpiece and his stronghold. We shall, in its place in the present volume, treat this topic more in detail. A very summary view will suffice in the present con- nection, Man is a religious being — has implanted in him a reli- gious instinct. Hence he must and will have a religion of some sort. And in whatever form it comes, his reli- 74 FOOT-PBINTS OF SATAN. gion has over him a strong, controlling influence. The Christian will go to the stake, the block, or face the tor- tures of the Inquisition for his religion. The votary of idolatry will go on long pilgrimages, walk on spikes, lacerate his flesh, swing on the hooks. There is per- haps no stronger element at work among men than that of religion. And no one understands this better than the Devil. And he is fully on the alert to improve every advantage he may thereby gain. Here we meet our enemy at home, and in his great strength. He has intrenched himself in the citadel of religion, and has thence from the earliest ages ruled the nations. The exceptions to this rule have been, not nations, but indi- viduals, or at most, communities. Hence the master- stroke of the Devil has been to pervert and corrupt re- ligion, and thus monopolize for himself its mighty power. The history of all false religions abundantly sustains the assumption that here is his stronghold. Here especially does he appear as " the father of lies." In Eden he began the work of his great and fatal delu- sion. God had said, the " soul that sinneth it shall die." Satan said, " thou shalt not die." And so he has been saying in all time since. By blinding the mind, by perverting God's truth, by presenting false atonements for sin, and substituting the form for the life of religion, he has deceived the nations, and set them wandering after idols — or after the Beast or the false Prophet. A marked feature in our Enemy's doings here (which we shall illustrate more fully hereafter) is his intense and persistent rivalry in following up and keeping alongside with God in aU his dispensations of the true Eehgion. In every advancement of the church and new revelation of the truth, from Adam to Moses, from Moses to Christ, and so onward to the present moment, the Devil has een ready with a counterfeit to meet and thereby per- OEIGIN AND mSTOEY OF IDOLATEI 75 vert every progressive development of the true religion. Almost at the outset, under the Patriarchal dispensation he perverted the idea of worshipping the only one true God, by first introducing what seemed to be a very plaus- ible, if not harmless substitute, of worshipping the sun, moon and stars as the most ostensible representation of God. This, under the fostering care of Satanic wiles and the natural promptings of human depravity, very naturally matured into bold idolatry : first, the worship of Heroes, and then to the boAving down to images of wood and stone, the workmanship of human hands. Upon the introduction of the Mosaic dispensation, idolatrous systems were revolutionized and modified so as to meet the progress of the times, that the nations should not revolt and throw off the yoke of the "Usurper. And more especially when Christ came, and a yet clearer light shone out from the hill of Zion and made visible the darkness of all former ages, the religions of the East — of India,, of China and adjacent countries — were essen- tially modified ; grosser features were discarded, and ap- proximations and resemblances of the truth, even of Christian truth, were now inoculated into those old, eflfete systems of idolatry, yet so perverted as to do Httle more than to change the truth of God into a lie. While the nations of Western Asia and of Eastern Europe, being now too greatly enlightened longer to remain satis- fied with the form of idolatry, were accommodated, by the arch Perverter, with an amalgam of Christianity, Judaism and Pagan Idolatry, which should satisfy the rehgious instinct, serve the purposes of the Devil, yet have some plausible show of the truth. Hence the device of Mohammedanism, with a headship, not of the Messiah of Mount Zion, but of the Prophet of Mecca. The Papal Apostasy. — But the most plausible, perfect 76 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. and successful counterfeit was yet to be introduced. The Light from Mount Zion had shone too clearly on the Western nations to allow the people of those nations to be satisfied even with the compromise of Mecca. They must and would have Christianity. Nothing less would satisfy them. And the Devil said, yea ; and he gave fchem Christianity, with a gorgeous ceremonial and a Romish baptism ; a reUgion framed after his own choice and Hking. He gave them not only the name, but many of the doctrines and more of the forms, yet with scarcely the pulsation of spiritual life or power. Tlie Papacy may be regarded as the siwnmation of crowning crafti- ness— the " deceivableness of unrighteousness " — the arch delusion ; the most complete counterfeit of pure and undefiled rehgion. It is a complete usurpation and mo- nopoly of all the powers and prerogatives, aU the virtues, graces and rewards of Christianity ; it is a claim of universal power, temporal and spiritual — the Pope in the place of God, forgiving sins, and exercising all power in heaven and earth. All that now seemed wanting in order to consummate this delusion and make it the grand climacteric scheme by which to oppose, and, if possible, destroy all evangel- ical Christianity, was the sealing of the Pope's infallibility. This would simply consummate the entire scheme and vindicate its consistency. The long-cherished preten- sions of the Pope, and predictions concerning him, would simply be realized. " He opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped." And the infallibility dogma once confirmed, and he " sitteth as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God," This done, and Satan has seated himself on the pinnacle of the temple. He can do no more. And from this point of pride and vaunting and defiant sacrilege, we expect to see him cast down and cast out forever ' THE EMPIRE OF PEACE AND EIGHTEOUSNESS. 77 and on ihei ruins of the most consummate spiritual des- potism tliat ever cursed the nations, King Immanuel shall rear his everlasting empire of peace and righteous- ness. The Angel, having the everlasting gospel to preach to every nation and kindred and tongue and people, is flying through the midst of heaven, saying, " Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come ; worship him." And when this " consummation so devoutly to be wished " shall come, when truth and righteousness shall triumph, then shall follow another angel saying, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made aU nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And soon John sees another angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the Dragon, that old Serpent which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be ful- filled ; and after that he should be loosed for a little season. IV. SATJlN m THE EARLY CHRISTIAJST CHUECH. jaEISTIAlOix'r A NEW REVELATION — THE DEVIL ALAEMED — HE ASSAILS THE STEONGHOLD OF THE CHUECH — EOEE- WAENED BY CHRIST — PEESECUTIONS OF THE EAELY CHUECH — ^ITS MAETYES — PEESECUTIONS DUEING THE EEFORMATION — ATTEMPTS TO ANNIHILATE THE BIBLE — THE CORRUPTION OF THE CLERGY — PRIESTLY USURPATION — ROME NEVER CHANGES. We have seen with what demoniac virulence the De- stroyer followed up the Church from Adam to Moses and from Moses to Christ ; how he never lost an advan- tage to thwart its progress, and, if possible, to turn back the onroUing tide of truth and righteousness in the world. Yet what he had done was seeming weakness compared with what he should do. The Mosaic dispensation, though a decided advance on any that had gone before, was but the shadow of what now began to be revealed in the cradle at Bethlehem. The one was called the " min- istration of death," the other, the " ministration of the spirit." "If the ministration of death be glorious — which glory should pass away — shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious ?" So, as the Apostle argues, " even that which was made glorious (the former ALAKM AT THE ADYENT OF THE SAVIOUR. 79 dispensation) had no glory in tliis respect, by reason of the glory that exceUeth." Christianity was a new revelation — the bursting in of the morning upon a long and dreary night. Christ came to claim his " own ;" to take the kingdom to himself. A new light has arisen, and new agencies and resources should henceforth be engaged to overthrow the empire of Satan, and to rear on its ruins the kingdom of our Emanuel. The conqueror had come. Out of his mouth " went a sharp two-edged sword ; and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength." Or he is por- trayed as " a Bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race." The Devil was alarmed. His empire on the earth had never been so seriously imperilled before. God had come in ihejlesh. And he had come expressly to destroy the works of the Devil ; and to take away the armor in which he trusted ; and to bind him in chains of dark- ness, and to cast him out forever. It meant war to the knife ; and a desperate — a terrible resistance must be offered. As he could not hinder the Saviour's advent into the world, he would do what he could to resist his progress and baffle his purposes. Hence he met him in his cradle, and at once devised a scheme by which to cut him off in his early infancy. A decree went out from the Devil's liege-lord to murder all the infants in Beth- lehem, hoping thereby to kill Jesus. The device failed ; yet the infant Jesus is driven away into Egypt, where it might be hoped he would fall a victim to a people who, to weaken, if not to destroy, the chosen people, had murdered aU their infants. But seeing he could not de- stroy him, his next device was to divest him if possible of his Divine power and glory. For this purpose he met him in the wilderness, and, by three audacious as- saults, tempted him to deny his God, and compromise 80 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. his own divinity. And thence onward, through the whole earthly career of our blessed Lord, he never allowed an advantage to resist him, and to turn away the people from hearing him, and to stir them up to persecute him — never allowed an advantage to assail the Holy One to pass unimproved, till the time of the great Oifering drew near, when he instigated Judas to betray him, Peter to deny him, all the disciples to forsake him, the soldiers to buffet him, and Pilate to crucify him. Poiled iu all these vile machinations against the hated cause, he was constrained for a time to desist. The cru- cified One had burst the bands of death, risen from the tomb, and triumphantly ascended to heaven. He was God ; vindicated in the sight of angels and of men. The Cross had triumphed. That which it was supposed would cover the newly risen Eehgion with infamy and disgust was hkely to become the glorious centre of the Christian Faith. The crucified One would be " believed on in the world." Indeed, this characteristic of Chris- tianity and evidence of its Divinity was singularly illus- trated in its early history. Ko other religion ever so readily commended itself to all conditions and nation- ahties of men. No other religion ever contained such elements of universahty. No other ever evidenced itself as a religion for man. Every form of religion that had preceded it was local — belonged to some one people or nation, Judaism was a rehgion only for the Jews. The different forms of the Oriental religions were suited only to the several tribes or nations for which they were con- structed ; and especially were suited only to times, the state of intelligence and learning, and yet more to the prevailing caste of civihzation. Christianity, on the other hand, announced and verified itself from the be- ginning as a religion for the world — adapted to the wants of man, irrespective of race, nation color, or condition. CHKISTIANITY A RELIGION FOE MAN. 81 And such did it evince itself to be, not only by tlie com- mand that it should be preached to all nations, and the fact that the early Christians understood this to be an essential characterisi^c of the new rehgiou, but yet more from the fact of its adaptedness to all peoples and the wonderful success that attended the early missionary labors of the Christian Church. He Assails the Stronghold of the Church. — Wb have the testimony of Justin Martyr that, within a century after he death of its divuie Author, the new religion had be- come known and measurably accepted in every part of the known world. He says : " There exists no people, whether Greek or barbarian, or any other race of men, by whatever appellation or manners they may be distiu- guished, however ignorant of arts or agriculture ; whether they dwell in tents, or wander about in covered wagons, among whom prayers are not offered up in the name of the crucified Jesus to the Father and Creator of all things." Indeed, in much less than a century after Christ was risen, St. Paul says : " The gospel was preached to every creature which is under heaven ;" "which is come unto you as it is in all the world." " Their sound went into all the world, and their Avords unto the ends of the earth." Here was a power such as the world had not before known — an agency at work that stirred up the powers of darkness to the lowest hell. Something must be done. A council is convened — an ecumenical council of " angels,, and principahties, and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world, and of spiritual wickedness in high places." They assemble. All are filled with dis- may. New modes of defence must be devised ; new modes of attack adopted. Some counsel an assault more bold and daring than ever before. Others, and more successfully, counsel craft and lying hypocrisies as 82 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. the weapons of tlie new warfare. What assailants may fail to do, sappers and miners may accomplish. The grand council are at their wits' end. Never was even Satanic wisdom more utterly confounded. Their right- ful Sovereign and Almighty Foe had completely flanked them. A new strategy must be pursued, a more vigorous and relentless warfare must be prosecuted. They resolve and re-resolve. Lucifer, the arch-fiend, and once " Son of the Morning," shall lead the invading host, and every subordinate devil shall stand in his lot and bear his own burden and do his own duty in the approaching conflict. The rising and advancing kingdom of the Man of Naza- reth must, if possible, and at any cost, be arrested. Or, if that cannot be, (as he more than suspects,) the sacra- mental host must be demorahzed, the esprit de corps vitiated, and the " Strong Man " disarmed by taking away the armor wherein his great strength heth. The power of the true Church, which is to take possession of the earth, is holiness — the pure, simple, unafi"ected, God- like piety of the heart. This alone identifies the Church with heaven, and engages Heaven's power in its behalf. When our blessed Lord gave to a few feeble, and (as the world regards them) uninfluential disciples the broad command to go and evangehze all nations, he did it with the assurance that he who sent them had " all power in heaven and in earth ;" and with an assurance equally un- quahfied that they should receive " power " — all-suflicient to overcome every obstacle — " after that the Holy Ghost had come upon them." A Church pure, simple, conse- crated, baptized, and vitalized by the Spirit ; earnest and Christ-like ; strong in holiness, which is the power of Christ, and planted on the everlasting rock of Truth ; will overcome aU. things, and be sure to subjugate the world to its dominion. " The gates of hell " — all the devils in the pit combined — " shall not prevail against THE GREAT BATTLE BEGUN :— STEPHEN STONED. 83 it." Yet the only hope of successful aggression and final conquest lies in the power of her holiness. And no one knew better than the Devil where the great strength of the Church lay ; and hence his inexo- rable assaults to corrupt her. Satanic craft has been especially concentrated to divorce the Church from the power of holiness. For mighty as Christianity is when clothed in this panoply of heaven, when vitalized by the pure, simple, all-controlling spirit of its divine author, yet when shorn of these locks of its strength, it be- comes " weak," like any human institution. As we might sujjpose, the first and most desperate on- slaught was made on the early promulgators of the gos- pel— the first invading host of Zion's King. As prompt- ed by the great Apollyon, Scribes and Pharisees, priests and rulers, are all confederated to do the bid- ding of their Father who is — not in heaven. They first tried their hand — or rather gratified their diaboKcal malice, by persecution. Stephen was a bright and shin- ing light ; bold, eloquent, persuasive ; a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of power. He did great won- ders and miracles among the people, and spake with convincing power. And the people could not resist the wisdom and spirit by which he spake. Again, some- thing must be done. " If we let him alone/' reasoned they, " all men will believe on him." So " they stopped their ears and ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of the city and stoned him." Was not the " hand of (a worse than) Joab in this ?" Herod, obse- quious to his master, stretched forth his hand to vex certain of the Church. And he killed James, the bro- ther of John with the sword. And another Governor of Judea delivered over James, the brother of Jesus to be stoned. But these seeming disasters were made to contribute 84 THE FOOT-PKINTS OF SATAN. to the furtherance of the cause which the persecutors fain would have destroyed. The death of Stephen, es- pecially, did more to defeat their wiles than his whole life had done before. "For as he looked steadfastly into heaven, he saw the glory of God, and Jesus stand- ing on the right hand of God." The heavens opened to welcome him ; and Jesus, standing on the right hand of the Majesty on high, with open arms received him. This was a testimony more damaging to the Foe than all he had done or said while living. Though thus baf- fled for the time, the Devil is none the less fixed in deadly hate to the Church ; first, by instigating violence against her in the form of persecution, and then by the yet more harmful device of corrupting her. The death of Stephen was followed by a severe per- secution at Jerusalem, in which " two thousand Chris- tians, with Nicanor, the deacon, were martyred, and many others obliged to leave the country." The apos- tate Jews, as if it were not enough that the blood of the crucified One rested on them and on their children, pur- sued the early Christian Church with a virulence and maUgnity which might put to the blush the veriest hea- then. " The priests and rulers of that abandoned peo- ple not only loaded with injuries and reproaches the Apostles of Jesus and their disciples, but condemned as many as they could to death," and this in the most irre- gular and barbarous manner. Among no other people did the Christian Church encounter more bitter or un- relenting enemies. They let slip no opportunity of instigating magistrates against the Christians, and ex- asperating the multitude to demand their destruction. Christ had forewarned his Disciples how the world, while subject to the dominion of the vile Usurper, would receive them. " They will deliver you up to councils \ they will scourge you in the synagogues ; you MAETYEDOM OF THE DISCIPLES. 85 shall be hated of all men for my sake ; nay, the time Cometh when they will think they are doing God service by putting you to death/' And soon were these predic- tions verified in appalling reality to them that heard them ; and then onward, through a dark cloud of perse- cutions for centuries to come. James, the son of Zebedee was beheaded. Philip was scourged and crucified. Matthew was slain in Ethiopia by a halberd. Mark was tied by the feet, dragged through the streets, left bruised in a dungeon all night, and the next day burned. The Jews, greatly enraged that Paul had escaped their fury, by appealing to Caesar, wreaked their vengeance on James, the bro- ther of Jesus, now ninety-four years old. They threw him down, beat, bruised and stoned him ; and then dashed out his brains with a club. Matthias was mar- tyred at Jerusalem ; first stoned, and then beheaded. Andrew was fastened to the cross, not with nails, but cords, that his death might be more slow and excruciat- ing. He lived two days, the greater part of the time preaching to the people. Peter, after a nine months' imprisonment and a severe scourging, was crucified with his head downwards. Paul, after having suffered im- prisonments, stripes, stonings, perils and privations of every name, was martyred by being beheaded, by order of the monster Nero, at Eome. Jude was crucified, and Bartholomew was beaten, crucified and decapitat- ed. Thomas was martyred in India, by being thrust through with a spear. Luke was hanged ; Simon was crucified, and John, the beloved disciple, after being miraculously delivered from a cauldron of boiling oil, by which he was condemned to die, was banished to the Isle of Patmos, to work in the mines. Yet this is little more than the beginning of that Sa- tanic rage which burst upon the Church. The storm 86 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. ■was gathering. The powers of the Pit were unloosed. What the perfidious Jews so disgracefully begun, the Eiomans finished. The Devil was as never before, mad upon the destruction of the sacramental host. A Nero had ascended the throne : a monster of wickedness and cruelty, a " perfidious tyrant," a fit tool of his Master beneath. The barbarous persecution that marked and disgraced his reign was the first of the Ten notable persecutions that afflicted the Church during the first three centuries. These were deadly, inveterate, calami- tous enough to annihilate anything but the Church of the living God. " On the Eock of Ages founded, What can shake thy sure repose ? With Salvation's walls surrounded, Thou mayest smile at all thy foes." Tet the assault was made ; and by ten bloody, ruthless persecutions, not a device was left untried ; not an agency unemployed that might exterminate, root and branch, this vine of the Lord's planting. But hke the oak sha- ken by the wind and made to reel to and fro by the tor- nado, this vine only struck its roots deeper and sent out its branches further and stronger, and bore yet more luscious and abundant fruit. The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. We can do no more than to snatch a few brands from this seething furnace of Tophet ; and if they are not con- ceded to be Devil, then we know not what is. Nero ordered the city of Rome to be set on fire — played on his harp in demoniac joy over the dreadful conflagration — then charged the outrage on the Chris- tians, that he might renew on them his barbarities. He aow refined on his former cruelties, and contrived all .:aanner of punishments. Some were sewed up in the THE FIEST OF THE TEN PERSECUTIONS. 87 skins of wild beasts, and then worried by dogs till they died. Others were dressed in shirts made stiff with wax, fixed on axletrees and set on fire in his gardens. In this persecution, (the first in order,) which extended over the whole Eioman Empire, Paul and Peter, Erastus and Aris- tarchus, and a long hst of worthies, suffered martyrdom. Under Domitian the record is not less disgusting : " im- prisonment, racking, searing, broiling, burning, scourg- ing, stoning, hanging and worrying. Many were torn piecemeal with red hot pincers, and others were thrown upon the horns of wild bulls. After having suffered these cruelties their friends were refused the privilege of burning their remains."* Timothy, the special friend and fellow laborer of Paul, and bishop of Ephesus, was among the victims. For reproving an idolatrous pro- cession, he was set upon with clubs, and beat in so cruel a manner that he died of his wounds two days after. HeUish ingenuity continually invented new devices. Phocas, bishop of Pontus, refusing to sacrifice to Nep- tune, was, by order of Trajan, cast first into a hot lime- kiln, and being drawn from thence, was thrown into a scalding bath till he expired. Ignatius, bishop of Anti- och, was cast into prison, cruelly tormented, dreadfully scourged, compelled to hold fire in his hands, and at the same time papers dipped in oil were put to his sides and set on fire. His flesh was torn with red-hot pincers, and then he was dispatched by being torn to pieces by wild beasts. Symphorosa, a widow, and her seven sons, refusing to sacrifice to the heathen deities, were igno- miniously murdered. The mother was scourged ; hung up by the hair of her head ; then a large stone was fastened to her neck, and she thrown into the river. Other martyrs were obliged to pass, with their already * Fox's Book of Martyrs. 00 FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. wounded feet, over thorus, nails, and sharp shells. Others were scourged till their sinews and veins lay bare ; and after suffering the most excruciating tortures, they died by terrible deaths."* But why recount these atrocities, which put to shame all human decency. They bespeak their origin. They are redolent with the fumes of the Pit. Yet we turn from them only to encounter forms of persecution and outrage yet more devilish. The civil or outside persecutions to which we have re- ferred, were the work of the heathen, or at best, of a great idolatrous power. While the Church remained uncorrupted the Devil was satisfied to use heathen ma- gistrates for her annoyance, and, he hoped, her destruc- tion. But no sooner had he made her swerve^ from her original purity and zeal, than, clothing his own servants in sacerdotal robes, he subsidized the power of an all powerful hierarchy in his service. It was persecution in the Church that would the most effectually serve the Enemy and trouble the faithful. As the Church became corrupt, as the Enemy secured its demoralization, and the great apostasy arose, the demon of persecution was let loose with a hellish malignity before unknown. The Inquisition, the stake and the rack, were the infernal im- plements of torture and death, now apphed, not by Pagan rulers, but by the professed ministers.of Christianity and servants of the Church. The professed Christian Church, and not an ungodly world, were the guilty perpetrators of the atrocious deeds the faithful historian has recorded. * We miglit add any amount of the like atrocities, described in terms like these: " Eed-hot plates of brass placed upon the tenderest parts of the body ;" " sit in red-hot chairs till the flesh broiled ;" " sewed up in nets and thrown upon the horns of wild bulls ;" "beaten — put to the rack— flesh torn with iron hooks •" «' stripped, whipped, and put into a leather bag with serpents and scorpions, and thrown into the sea." C0NSTA3ed for the control of other minds ; and when used only to persuade man to right action, or to the adoption of right principles, it is truly a divine art, as well as mighty. But how little of this noble art is as yet devoted to the real interests of man, the establishment and defence of the truth, or the support of human rights, or the promo- 200 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. tion of human happiness ! How extensively is this divine art employed merely to amuse as its better func- tion ; while, what is a thousand times worse, how much oftener is it employed to mislead, to deceive, to fortify error and wrong — to make the worse course appear the better — not to bless, but to curse. I cannot better illustrate what I mean than by the aid of a contrast recently drawn by an unknown, yet not an unpracticed pen. It is of two men of professional hfe who recently died in the city of New York. They were both born of rehgious parentage, educated under the most favorable circumstances, and both filled a large space in the public eye. Both have gone to their rest, and now the impartial verdict may be passed upon their lives and the fruit of their professional labors. The death and burial of both, nearly simultaneous, seems to admit of running out a parallel, instructive, even if painful : They started alike in life under the most favorable prospects for usefulness and elevation of character. They travelled the same road together but briefly, and when they separated, one took the "straight and narrow path " which leads to life, and the other the " hroad road which leads to destruction." One espoused the cause of Christ, and devoted time, talents and the energies of a long min- istry to the cause of his blessed Master. The other gave his rare native gifts, and the industry of weary, toilsome years to a profession which yields only the most bitte? fruits of unrighteousness. One labored untiringly through life to lead men to seek their spiritual safety to-day, and to advance their true happiness by following the way of positive religious duty. The other, not less diligent in the walks of a public profession, insidiously seduced men from their allegiance to Christ, by ridiculing the character of his disciples and caricaturing their professions and practices. One was engaged in every good word and THE STEAIGHT AND NAEEOW PATH. 201 work, striving to elevate tlie character of his fellow travellers to eternity, and valiantly defending the truth at the hazard of personal sacrifice and suffering. The other devoted his hfe to the frivohty of the stage and its conse- quent dissipation, and by example, if not precept, led many of the young into snares, from which they were never extricated. The life of one was a beautiful illustration of the power of faith in elevating and purifying character, in sustaining protracted suffering, and giving serenity and submission to an afflicted disciple. The history of the other shows the power of the sensual appetites and passions. One enjoyed the respect of all good men and the love of a large circle of eminent Christian friends. The other had the approbation mainly of men of similar habits and loose moral propensities, with but few to adhere to him in the hour of sickness and sorrow. One died the cheerful, happy disciple of a beloved Master, ready to go when summoned, and who is now in the possession of the *' unspeakable joy " promised the Christian. The other, " without hope or God in the world," suffered bitterly on his dying bed, remorse biting like a serpent and stinging like an adder, lamenting, while he had contributed so much to the sensual mirth of others, he himself had been the victim of the sorest dejection and grief. One was carried to the grave, surrounded by the sympathies of earnest friends and the warmest affection of Christians, whose memory will long be fragrant with the churches. The other died under circumstances of peculiar gloom, leaving few incidents in a frivolous and wasted hfe, to cause society to mourn his departure. Comments are needless and might seem invidious. The one has heard his Master say : " Servant of God, well done." And, greeted by a goodly company which he had guided to the heavenly Zion, and followed by the bene- 202 THE FOOT-PKINTS OF SATAN. diction of thousands wlio wait still the Master's call, he enters his eternal rest. But what, when viewed from his standpoint before the tribunal of the great God, does the great comedian now see in the life-elevation of his no less gifted mind, and probably more brilliant talents that can minister one drop of satisfaction now ? Does he wish Ms works to follow him ? Would he now be greeted by the array of that great multitude, which, during a long and much applauded professional course, he had the most effectually helped onward in their downward course in the broad road to death. I pause only to ask the young man now buckling on the harness for life, endowed with brilliant talents, and aspiring after great things, in whose footsteps he would choose to tread ? Would he follow in the career, and seek the world-wide renown of William E. Bueton ? Or would he, as an humble, faithful disciple of Jesus Christ, and a minister of the New Testament, like James W. Alexander and Geoege Whitfield, yield himself up a servant of the crucified one, and seek honor with God by turning many to righteousness ? But there is yet another class, whom, though I would not rank them in the category of the classes before named, are satisfied to employ their mental endowments in a department of literature, which can scarcely claim a higher office than that of catering to the transient, and too often not the innocent amusement of readers. We cannot too deeply regret that such rare, brilliant, com- manding talents for popular writing as are possessed by such authors as Dickens, Bulwer, and scores of writers of that class, should not have made their great power felt in a higher sphere of intellectual and moral teaching. It seems but a melancholy perversion, a sad waste that such powers should aspire to nothing higher than to amuse, — and perhaps sink so low as to demoralize. POWER OF A GOOD LITE. 203 " An enemy hath done this :" and scarcely do we else- where discover ravages over which the good man should more bitterly weep. What could not such men do if their glowing minds and warm hearts were enlisted on the side of truth and righteousness. A moment's contrast will again confirm what I assert. Contrast the class of men to whom I have just referred, with such men as Samuel J. Mills, Howard, Wilberforce, , Harlan Page, Knill, and Payson — all of them men of moderate talents, compared with the authors I have named; and what have they done? I speak not so much now of the quantity of the respective doings of the two classes as of the quahty. The one is engraven on the marble, the other written on the sand ! I am doubtless safe in saying that Samuel J. Mills — neither a poet, philosopher or sage — neither a genius, a scholar or a wit' — contributed more, in the simple truths he preached during a very brief ministry and the plans of benevolent action he devised, to the real enhghtenment and the true progress of his race — left more behind him worthy to be remembered, and did more for the substantial good of man, than all the skeptics, all the learned infidels, all the writers of fiction and comedy, and all the religious errorists from the beginning of the world to present time. Being dead he speaks more than their whole united voice combined. But we should here not overlook, as strongly corrobo- rating what I have said of this class of men, that, while we may thus hold them up as examples worthy of aU imitation as having made an unusual consecration of their powers, they themselves indulged the humiliating thought that they had done little compared to what they miglit have done — that the devotion of their talents and opportunities had been but partial. Nothing gives a sure, lasting and wholesome efficacy to our intellectual efforts — nothing makes mind truly in the right direction, but the 204: THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. 'power of a good life. " We have," says Dr. Chalmers, " many ways of doing good to our fellow-creatures ; but none so efficacious as leading a virtuous, upright and well-ordered life. There is an energy of moral suasion in a good man's life, passing the highest efforts of the orator's genius. The seen but silent beauty of holiness speaks more eloquently of God and duty than the tongues of men and angels. Let parents remember this. The best inheritance a parent can bequeath to a child is a virtuous example, a legacy of hallowed remembrances and associations. The beauty of holiness, beaming through the life of a loved relative or friend, is more effectual to strengthen such as do stand in virtue's ways, and raise up those that are bowed down, than precept, command, entreaty or warning. Christianity itself, I believe, owes by far the greater part of its moral power, not to the precepts or parables of Christ, but to his own character. The beauty of that holiness which is enshrined in the four brief biographies of the Man of Nazareth, has done more, and will do more, to regenerate the world, and bring in an everlasting righteousness, than all the other agencies put together. It has done more to spread his rehgion in the world than all that has ever been preached or written on the evidences of Christianity." We can, in the nature of the case, take no more than a surface view of the perversions to which allusion has been made. Could we penetrate into the secret springs of action we should be astonished to find how little of the world's activity is as yet set in motion by consecrated talent. We turn to the learned professions : the gospel minis- try, the law, and medicine. These three professions embrace a very large share of the talent of a nation ; and of consequence, exert a very controlling influence on every class of a community. We would that we might THE LEAENED PROFESSIONS. 205 pass by the first as too destitute of illustrations to detain us. But alas, it is not so. Thougli no profession devotes so mucli of its talent to the real and lasting good of man, yet a tale too sad may be told here. "We shall now leave out of the account the priestly orders of all false religions, though it is here that we meet the most lamentable perversions of talent anywhere to be found in aU professional life. For it is among false religions that nearly all the learning of a nation is monopohzed by the priesthood : and if it be used, as facts show it for the most part is, to foster superstition, to enslave mind, and to crush liberty, it is one of the most wholesale, unblush- ing, wicked perversions of talent and satanic malignity ever devised, or that the Arch-Fiend ever practiced. It is rather to the clerical profession as it exists under its best form, as the ministry of the evangelical church, that reference is made. No profession, as I said, devotes so large a proportion of its talent to the best interests of man, whether for time or for eternity. Yet, by one perver- sion or another, how large deductions are we often obliged to make from the intellectual efficiency they might have rendered ; while the most devoted class have grievously to lament their lack of entire consecration of mind, soul and spirit, to the great work of their calling. The profession of law is a noble profession. It is, when taken as embracing jurists and judges, legislators and executors, the guardian of some of the highest and dearest of man's earthly interests. Man's relation to man, and the duties proceeding from these relations are second only to his relations and duties to his God, and in the divine arrangements they are not separated. The profession in question is charged with these interests — to define these relations and to enforce these duties. They are, in the most extensive sense, the ministers of justice, to define, enforce and defend its claims. The 206 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. science of government falls within the sphere of their high and responsible duties. And withal this numerous class of men possess a very large share of the talent of our country, abundantly fitting them to meet duties so onerous and honorable. What opportunities has the statesman to play the patriot and use the highest order of talents for the noblest of purposes : yet often, shrink- ing in the merest truckling politician, his country would be the better if he had no talents at aU. And who has a nobler field than the lawyer — to stand forth the defender and dispenser of justice — nobly to serve his fellow-men in those mazes and intricacies of life where most they need a friend ? But how often is he the worst friend justice has to fear ; he makes right wrong, and his tender mercies are cruelty. If every statesman were a true patriot, and every poUtician a true man, and every lawyer an honest jurist, soon would our world be, at least civilly, socially and commercially, prepared for that golden age, so often sung by prophets and sighed for by all who wait to welcome the restitution of aU things through the Mediatorial King. I shall leave to the sons of iEsculapius to determine whether there be among their fraternity any special in- tellectual waste. A very sacred trust is committed to them ; and the fraternity embodies large treasures of learning and science — of native and cultivated talent. But it is not easy for the uninitiated to enter into the penetraHa of their art, and determine how far the great intellectual resources and the large fund of experience possessed by the craft, are made to subserve the best sanitary interests of their respective communities. Has the heahng art advanced with the advance of knowledge and science ? Similar remarks will probably appear not the less just if applied to general literature. Of two thousand writers INTELLECT AND BUSINESS. 207 in our land, one half are writers of fiction — a large pro- portion, indeed, devote themselves to the mere amuse- ment of a people. For most of these writers aim at nothing higher — and many of them aim at something vastly lower. They make a well told story a decoy to innoculate a large mass of mind with a moral poison more fatal than death. More minds are probably cor- rupted, more hearts demoralized, more error inculcated by the novel than in any or perhaps all other ways : and so plausibly, so stealthily, so insidiously, that the infatu- ated patient is insensible of the disease contracted till it is past all remedy. A vast amount of the most sprightly talent of the present day, of the most lively and excursive imagination, and inventive genius in the pro- duction of the Hterature here referred to is thus prosti- tuted. What would be the influence on the world if such talents and aptitudes were devote 1 only to illustrate and enforce truth — to promote the mental and moral im- provement of their readers ? It would add an immense power to our present resources for the renovation of the world. This is however but one way in which our literature is perverted and prostituted. Many books are written pur- posely to propagate error, to demoralize, to stir up strife and party animosity, to defame character, to excite the carnal passions, to exalt wickedness and to prostrate virtue. A similar course of remark would apply to Jmsiness talent as engaged in the guidance of the great commer- cial affairs of the world. Few fully estimate the value to civilization, and to all the great movements of the world, of men of capital, and of that tact and talent so to employ it as to make it answer its great and beneficent ends. Without this agency not one of the great plans of 208 THE FOOT-PEESfTS OF SATAN. human progress, and for the extension of Christianity, can be carried out ; and were this once to become a sanctified agency, we could want neither means, resources nor facilities for the consummation of all our purposes of benevolence for the final regeneration of the world. But nowhere else do we more distinctly trace the foot -prints of the Foe. Exceptions we have of merchant princes, and princely men of business, who are truly pillars in the Church, and whose arms of benevolence reach around the globe. Yet how extensive and lamentable is the perversion ! How do the shrewdest minds too often aspire to no higher function than that of devising ways and means to overreach,, deceive, defraud and oppress. And science has by no means escaped the hand of the destroyer. It is rather a painfully interesting fact, that some of the most beautiful and valuable discoveries of modern science are highly serviceable to crime and fraud. Counterfeiters and forgers seem to be as much inclined to use them, and promise to be as much benefited by them, as honest men and honest arts. A new process of reproducing facsimiles of manuscript writing from stone, was exhibited at the last session of the French Academy of Sciences. A M. Lachard, in the presence of that body, requested some of its members to write, and sign their names to a few Hnes upon a sheet of paper. This while yet moist was placed by Lachard upon blotting paper, which he took to his house, leaving the original in the hands of an Academician, M. Segnier. The next day M. Segnier and his colleagues received two copies of this, one upon parchment and the other upon ordinary letter paper, so exactly hke the original in all respects, as to defy a stranger to the experiment to tell which of the three first was written — which were copies and which was the original. The Academy requested Lachard not to make the process of this dangerous discovery pubhc. PERVEKSION OF MUSIC AND SONG 209 And more forbidding still is the survey when we con- template the schemes of mischief and villainy which are planned and executed only by minds great in wicked- ness. The whole power of some of the greatest minds is employed only in schemes of mischief — at least in some way that only debases and preys upon the best interests of man. Music, history and the fine arts each affords a field of illustration which we may now scarcely enter. Tho marble has a voice — every painting speaks, and each carries a lesson to the mind and a moral to the heart. But how sad that that lesson and that moral should so often serve only to debase and demoralize. The prosti- tution has here been sad indeed. But our survey of the poAvers and perversions of Music and Song must not be quite so hasty. Perhaps no species of talent is so largely and so sadly perverted as that of Music. The Devil has been per- mitted almost to monopoHze this mighty power over the human mind. I have spoken of the power of poetry, and how extensively it has been prostituted to corrupt, debase and to persuade to evil, rather than to purify, to elevate and to charm into what is good. Music and song are exercises of the same power. And each is itself a power which we are not likely to overrate. Music is of heaven- ly origin — a native of Paradise, sent to cheer man in his earthly pilgrimage, to speak to the heart in the mellow strains of celestial harmony, and to teach him the language of the angehc choir. In religion, in politics, in the social sphere, music is an acknowledged power of no secondary order. The extraordinary success of Methodism, in our country more especially, in its earlier history furnishes an illus- tration. We scarcely know whether preaching or sing- ing had the most to do with that success. The states- 14 210 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. man, the patriot and more especially the politician, un- derstands the value to his cause of the power of song. The demagogue and the military chieftain, perhaps, un- lerstand it better. Many a revolution has greatly owed cs success to the influence of song. It is enough that we instance the Marseillaise hymn ; the popular songs of our own Be volution, Indian war- songs, and the songs and ballads which are used to act on the masses, to stir them up for some great public movement, a riot a war, an election. Song often does more than the pub- lic harangue to persuade man to good or to evil. We need no more than allude to the perversion of this talent. Most ruthlessly has the Enemy invaded this lovely domain. We may not attempt to determine how large a portion of music is perverted from its natural and legitimate use — made the means of debasing, de- moralizing and exciting to all manner of evil. The per- version is enormous. Nor has the field of Hjstoey been overlooked in the devastations of the Foe. Though recently in a degree recovered from the hand of the Destroyer, yet history has been, to a great extent, surrendered to the tender mercies of such writers as Hume and Gibbon, Yolney and Voltaire. Of all the deadly onslaughts made on history, none was ever more audacious than that of the Romish Hie- rarchy at the present moment. In this era of progress, of hght and knowledge, of civilization and religious and civil liberty, the Romish Church is made to feel that there are certain prominent, glaring, hideous features in her history which stand out before the eyes of the world, a burning disgrace, an indelible stigma on all de- cent humanity. It is the history of the Inquisition — of the block and the stake — of murders and massacres and persecutions infernal. As seen through the lurid atmo- HOME REPUDIATES HER OWN HISTORY. 211 sphere of the dark ages, they seemed but of the earth, earthy. But as the faithful page of history holds them up before the eyes of a modern civilization, to say noth- ing of the light of Christianity, they put to the blush the successors of, and the vouchers for, those who perpe- trated these unearthly deeds. No such stigma rests on our race as is to be read in the horrid tortures inflicted on the humble, unoffending followers of Christ in the days of those Eomish persecutions. The burning re- cord stands engraven on the page of history, and " what can they do about it?" They have determined what to do. The foul record must be blotted out. The truth of history must be de- nied. Facts so disgraceful to themselves and to all hu- manity must be repudiated. The undisputed facts of centuries must now be branded as "Protestant lies," and Rome be received as a tolerant Church. This is what the Papacy are attempting "to do about it." Though Rome did nothing in the darkest of her dark days of persecution and blood, which, if she had the power, she would not do now, yet she is deter- mined to ignore her own history, if by any means, fair or foul, she may wipe out the stigma of the past. It is a reckless, fearless Devil that dares raise his polluted hand to blot out the page of long-confirmed history. But we need not be surprised. No device is left un- tried. But we pursue the subject in this form no further. Sin not only perverts thought, but is, to a sad extent, the enemy of thought. A few very wicked men have made great advances in learning, have become sages and philosophers. But they have become such rather in spite of their bad moral character. Sin, in all its ele- ments, in all its actings and developments, is the foe to mental researches and acquisitions. While on the other 212 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. hand, a pure religion is the most favorable to the culti- vation of all sorts of useful learning. The peaceful and sanctified conscience, which belongs to such a religion, the pure mind it secures, the good habits it engenders, are all directly conducive to intellectual progress and at- tainments. And what is yet more to our purpose, in re- spect to the resources of knowledge, fields of investiga- tion and materials of thought, the enlightened con- science and the sanctified mind have the decided advantage. The objects of all knowledge — the entire field of scien- tific research, in a sense more or less direct, relate to God, his works, his word, or his ways ; their relations one to another ; man's relations to them ; their laws ; their operations, qualities or uses. Now shall we be told that the condition of the mind, the state of the conscience and the ajffections, and the habits of the man, have nothing to do with the progress of all true science ? Is the knowledge, the love, and the reverence of the Creator no quahfication to a more ready and thorough acquaintance with his works and his ways ? There is, subjectively, no doubt, a reason why the pious, devout mind has a decided advantage in the pursuit of any branch of knowledge. As it is said, " he that doeth the will of God shall know of the doctrine''' — he shall be in a position, his mind shall be so guided that he shall understand the truth and know what to beheve, so a mind right towards God is in a state to understand and comprehend more of all that pertains to God. " The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him" — they that love and honor God are brought into a position most favorable to a knowledge of him, whether it be of the works of his creation or of his providence or grace. The same idea is conveyed in another expression of the Psalmist : " The works of the Lord are great, sought TRUE EELIGION AND SCIENCE. 213 out of all them that have pleasure in Him."* Delight in the Lord, complacency in his character, supreme admira- tion and reverence, are again, the best possible quahfica- tions which a mind can bring to the study of God's works; in other words, to the pursuit of all science. Whether, therefore, the materials of thought, the field of investigation, or the resources and preparedness of mind be brought into the account, we are justified in the conclusion that true science, that all intellectual advance- ment, finds its only congenial field within the domains of a pure Rehgion. Sin is its most formidable foe. Did we need further confirmation of this we might find it in the history of useful learning as it has existed under the auspices of different forms of Religion. It is here safe to affirm that practical, useful learning has nowhere found a congenial atmosphere except imder the protecting, fostering care of a pure rehgion. Nowhere else is general intelHgence encouraged and the masses educated, and no- where else is knowledge and science to any extent made practical. And, what strengthens this position, is that the history of those nations over which false religions hold sway, shows that those which incorporate the most of truth in them and consequently approach nearest to a true religion, are the most prolific in the useful arts and sciences ; while those at the other extreme are the most barren. It is not intended here to deny that Egypt, Greece and Rome, did, though they were idolatrous nations, produce some truly learned men. But it is intended to assume that these learned men were in no sense the products of false rehgious systems. They were the merest exceptions from the ignorant masses : and more, it is intended to assume that the Platos, the Senecas, the Socrates and * According to Steeet, who translates "in Him," instead of " therein" as is rendered in King James' Bible. 214: THE FOOT-PKINTS OP SATAN. Aristotles of those nations were, in connection with their intellectual culture, and in consequence of it, emancipated from the shackles which kept in mental bondage the mass of their pagan countrymen. As they penetrated into the deep things of nature and of mind, they discovered there was a God of nature and of mind, raised infinitely above all the gods which the masses of their countrymen so ignorantly worshipped. Pagan idolatry has drawn over its intellectual empire a cloud almost impenetrable and well-nigh universal. Yet in defiance of which a little light has shined, and a few minds been enlightened. Mohammedanism has ad- mitted more light, and the papacy yet more ; and learn- ing has prospered in the same proportion — owing noth- ing, in either case, to a false religion, but to the Truth, which, in spite of all systems of error, has wrought out such a result. X; THE PERVERSION OF WEALTH. MONEY A POWER IN THE HANDS OF THE GREAT ADVERSARY — ^THE COST OF SIN — ^PRIDE — AMBITION — WAR — ^LUXURY — EXTRAVAGANCE — RUM — TOBACCO — OPIUM ; WITH FACTS AND FIGURES OP EACH. Money is power. And no power perhaps exerts a more universal empire over the human mind. When honestly gotten and properly used, it is a power for good scarcely second to any other. If perverted it is a mighty power for evil. Money is the motive power of commerce ; and the right arm of the arts and sciences. It gives wings to the gospel, speeding the angel of mercy, with healing in his wings, on his blessed mission around the world. There is not at the present moment a more practical question, if there be a more important one, than that of the right use, or consecration of property. Fidelity, as touching the unrighteous mammon, is a virtue of very high order, but of rare attainment. Defection here is but too common and almost universal. Money, in the pre- sent position of the world's regeneration, is a very essential agency. Here too it is the sinews of war. AU sorts of reforms must be effected. Men, in vastly greater number, must be sent abroad to evangehze the nations. 216 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. Scliools and all tlie needed appliances of education must be sustained on a vastly enlarged scale. The press must enter upon a mission of unprecedented magnitude and magnificence ; and all tlie agencies for a higher type of civilization and Christianity must be furnished. The demand for pecuniary resources is perhaps at the present moment more imperative than any other. We design, in this chapter, to present a few facts, illustrating the dominant power of sin and Satan, in the misuse and 'perversion of wealth. And in no other way perhaps can we more vividly portray the dreadful depre- dations sin is making on the happiness, the health, the mind, the life and the soul of man. But we shall allow, in the discussion of the theme, considerable latitude. There is a guilty perversion of wealth when it is devoted to purposes decidedly sinful, as in the case of offensive war, intemperance, licentiousness, gambling and the Uke. And there is the culpable perversion of the same, to purposes which in themselves may be right and proper, and wrong only in the excess, as in the matter of amusements, extravagance, waste, pride, luxury. It will not always be easy here to discriminate between the lawful and the unlawful. But we shall have no need to insist on doubtful cases. Those obvious and conceded will suffice for our general illustration — wiU indicate but too clearly how small a portion of the world's wealth is devoted to purposes really human or benevolent ; or that even minister to the common weal of man — to his im- provement or happiness. The proportion prostituted to purposes decidedly, temporally, and eternally hurtful to man, is, as we show, fearfully immense. But, be it understood, we enter on no crusade against riches. They are good — ^to be desired and sought for. The great sin of the world is not that all men are anxious to be rich. Nothing is more laudable — if riches be USE AND ABUSE OF WEALTH. 217 sought in a proper manner and for right ends. By all , lawful and right means, and in a manner not interfering with higher claims, and for the purpose of gaining a power to be used for good, it is desirable and right to seek to be rich. Industry is a virtue of high order ; and as industry is almost the sure road to wealth, and the lack of it the sure road to poverty and its manifold temptations and vices, we are justified in the inference that he who pursues a course that must inevitably make and keep him poor has the greater sin. There is a very general concession that worldly substance is a good thing. The rich feel it ; the poor feel it. But there is, it is feared, a much less rational sensibility as to the responsi- bility imposed by the possession of wealth. Money is as mighty a power for evil as it is for good. The better the world become the more riches will increase. Compare the wealth of Christendom with that of heathendom. Wealth, indeed, is a needful auxihary to the progress of the race. Systems of education, advances in civihzation, and the spread of the gospel, are all, instrumentally, dependent on pecuniary resources. Our enemy well understands this ; and hence his many devices to pervert or monopolize the use of wealth. Some of Satan's mightiest, wickedest devices are to be met here. In nothing has he, in a more melancholy way, vindicated his usurped claims of being the god of this world. He has not failed to appropriate to purposes of sin the greatest part of the wealth of the world. Here we might go into an interminable illustration. But we shall keep within prescribed limits. We might range what we would say under three gene- ral heads : misdirected wealth, wealth hurtfully appro- priated, and wealth wickedly applied. This classification, though sufficiently general, is not sufficiently distinctive. We shall simply specify some of the ways in which wealth 218 THE FOOT-PRINTS OP SATAN. is perverted and made not to honor but to dislaonor thfe great Giver; not to bless but to curse man : I. Pride, fashion, love of show, ambition, simply to outdo others, absorbs an untold amount of money. After making the most generous deductions, in myriads of families in the land, for the necessaries and comforts of life, whether for food or raiment, houses or equipage, — im- mense sums, the lion's share of the domestic expenditure, are to be put to the account of sheer fashion or pride. Starthng sums are swallowed up in the yawning gulf of extravagance and luxury. We not unfrequently hear of the great sums expended to carry out the few plans of benevolence which find a place in this world of ours. But how perfectly insignificant these compared with the vast amounts squandered in senseless extravagance, or in useless, if not hurtful luxuries. All expended for the mere charities of our age, all employed to carry out plans of education, reform, or benevolence in any form, is insignificant, the mere dust of the balance, when com- pared with the immense amounts which go to pamper and support extravagance and pride. Many a Christian yields his thousands to fashion or pride while he does not give as many units to the claims of philanthropy or religion. Many a church has her hundreds of thousands invested in costly edifices and decorations of her sanctu- ary while she gives less hundreds to the spiritual interests of religion, or to the substantial good of man. We can scarcely turn the eye amiss to meet, in common life, all sorts of examples of uselessly profuse expenditure — the wicked perversion of the Lord's silver and gold. Yet we shall reserve a survey of the more profuse and luxuriant expenditures to another chapter ; such as regal extravagance, and the silly extravagance of those who ape royalty ; attempting here little more than to enter the confines of the field. EXTRAVAGANCE AND CHARITY. 219 Weddings are often relentlessly prodigal of lucre. A recent one in our great Gotham has attracted some special attraction, both on account of the profuse expen- diture, and from the character and position of the parties concerned. It was at the " palatial residence " of the redoubtable " Boss Tweed," and the happy bride was his daughter. Here we shall cease to wonder at the extra- vagant amounts absorbed in grounds, house, stables ; and now in" profuse expenditures for the wedding, when we are reminded liow the " Boss " got his money. For here certain unmistakable " footprints " are, if possible, more apparent in the getting than in the spending. But we are at present concerned rather in the latter. And what of the wedding ? The decoration of the interior of the house presented a marvellous scene of floral magnificence. Over the door of the great parlors on one side of the entrance hall hung a sort of star, with points projecting in all directions, made of white tuberoses and crimson roses and japonicas. On the other side, in corresponding position, hung a huge globe of the same flowers wrought into ornamental devices and showing the letters M. and T. in scarlet. Along the centre of the hall depended masses of solid flowers in basket form. The musicians, who sat in the semicircle between the stairways in the hall, were partly hidden from view by a great harp of green and white, edged inside and out with white roses. ' In the reception-room on the right of the entrance-door, one of the principal attractions was a monstrous two-decked basket of flowers at least a yard in diameter. On the mantel and stand, on the chandeher, everywhere flowers met the eye. Even the grate was a solid bed of exotics. It would be impossible by details to convey an idea of the marvellous quantities of expensive flowers which met the eye everywhere. 220 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. The presents were a chief centre of attraction to the guests. They filled an entire room when crowded close. There were forty silver sets, any one of which would have attracted a crowd if placed in a jeweler's window, and one single one contained 240 separate pieces. Mr. James Fisk, Jr., sent a frosted silver contrivance repre- senting an iceberg, evidently intended to hold ice-cream or some equally frigid substance. The association was beautifully sustained by the presence of Arctic bears re- posing on the icicle handles of the bowl and chmbiug up the spoons. Singularly enough, Mr. Fisk displayed the same taste as Superintendent K., and their offerings were exact duphcates. There were forty pieces of jewelry, of which fifteen were diamond sets. A single one of the latter is known to have cost $45,000. It contained diamonds as big as filberts. A cross of eleven diamonds, pea size, bore the name of Mr. and Mrs. H. W. G. as donors. A pin of sixty diamonds, representing a sickle and sheaves of wheat, was the gift of J. H. I. P. B. S.'s card appeared on diamond bracelets of fabulous magni- ficence. C. C. gave a ring with a tiny watch as the seal. Bronzes, thread lace, Cashmere shawls, rare pictures, everything that could be conceived of which is rich and costly filled the room with splendor. The trousseau of the bride was superb, the materials being of the finest quality, and obtained from a leading Broadway dry-goods house. They were of the most cost- ly description, and the labor in preparing them con- sumed nearly two months. The dresses were models of elegance, and the most refined taste, and a carle Uanche was given the maker, with the simple injunction that the outfit should be " the richest ever produced, and fit for a Princess." The wedding-dress was composed of white gros grain, with a train three and a haK yards in length, and was A BEIDAL DEESS AND OUTFIT. 221 trimmed with real point lace, costing near $4,000. The front of the skirt was cut with a deep scollop, and the over-skirt consisted of lace, ornamented with orange flowers. The price of the material and labor required in making and trimming this dress was $1,000, making, with the lace, a total cost of $5,000. The other dresses forming the trousseau were fourteen in number, and all elegant and designed in the most ar- tistic manner. First there was a black walking suit in heavy rich gros grain, in which thirty-five yards of silk were used. It was trimmed with two pieces of Antuilly guipure and two pieces of rich heavy Cluny. Three hundred and eighty -two bows were used in the trimmings. The front was cut with deep side pleating the whole width of 'the sku*t front, and the train was white, mingled artisti- cally with black. This dress cost $700. Next was a brown walking suit of thirty-two yards of brown silk costing $600. Another walking dress of forty- two yards of blue- striped silk, costing $350 : a black and white silk walking suit of thirty-five yards, costing $400 : a brown walking suit, containing fifty yards, at a cost of $300 ; a purple silk reception dress, thirty yards, $900 ; and a silver-gray reception dress, of thirty-two yards, and cost $1,000. The total for dresses $6,200. The whole closed by a magnificent dinner got up by Delmonico ; all that art and money could do. We make no attempt to sum up the aggregate of the expense. Not by tens, but by hundreds of thousands, must it be reckoned. But it is pleasant to know that the right parties paid the biUs. Most appropriately did the bride share largely in the munificence of the " King." Each bestowing bountifully as their lord and master had prospered them. II. Ambition is a voracious demon that swallows up perhaps a yet larger amount of wealth. Here, especially, 222 ' THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. are traced tlie footprints of the great Destroyer. Indeed a large proportion of the profuse expenditure which passes under the name of extravagance, is but a homage done to ambition. MilHons are yearly expended, which contribute little or nothing, either to convenience or com- fort, and have not so much as the plea of luxury. The chief motive is to outdo others. But we shall at present contemplate ambition rather in its wider and more absorbing, devastating sphere of action. Ambition is but the natural, the common parent of strifes, contentions, rivahies, hatred, bitterness and revenge ; which, when matured into fightings, Htigations and murders, begin to make up their bills from whose enormous demands there is no discharge. But not till matured into the grand and dreadful consummation of WAE, do we fully realize the uncounted waste. War is ambition's dearest progeny. The cost of a .single war would renovate our sin-stricken earth and make it a paradise in a single year. AU other expenditures of am- bition fall into insignificance when compared with the cost of war. Attempts to calculate the immense sums expend- ed in war induce the feehng that our giant Foe has here monopolized the wealth of the world. A few startling items, in addition to what has been presented in another connection, wiU serve as examples. Three wars of Great Britain in India, from 1827 to 1847, cost the nation $195,000,000 ; besides the expend- iture of another amount perhaps as great, during the same period, in their wars in Burmah, China, and India. The Crimean war cost the allies (England, France and Turkey) $400,000,000, to say nothing of the usual annual supplies for the army and navy ; the vast destruc- tion of property and a loss not less disastrous, of productive industry. And the expense of the same war on the part of Russia is believed to have been at least AMBITION A COSTLY DEMON. 223 equal to the aggregate incurred by the Allies. It has been estimated by a well informed and apparently an honest writer at $250,000,000 a year for extra military expenses occasioned by the war, and as much more for the willful or necessary destruction of property. At this rate, the war must have cost Eussia haK as much again as the Allies, and $600,000,000 would not square the account. But a large portion of this expenditure was in buildings, ships, produce and merchandise, and though as serious in the long run as the expenditure of hard cash, it will be longer in being felt. Probably three hundred millions of money have passed from the Imperial treas- ury into the hands of army agents, contractors, purveyors and contractors on account of the army. Taking this figure as the basis of calculation, we arrive at the conclu- sion that within less than twelve months, about seven hundred millions of dollars have been diverted from trade and agriculture and expended by the belligerents in the prosecution of the wax. Some idea of the enormousness of this sum may be derived from a knowledge of the fact that the united in- comes of the whole people of Great Britain and Ireland are only supposed to amount to five times as much. It is equal to three fourths the total debt of Austria, under which the House of Hapsburg has been tottering this many a year ; more than half the whole debt of France ; twice the debt of Eussia up to 1853 ; nearly four times the average assets of the Bank of England at the present day ; and more than fourteen times as much as the whole national debt of the United States before the late war. Or inquire we after the cost of the late Italian war ? A German paper has made the following calculation of the sums actually expended by different countries in Europe in supporting the late campaign, besides those raised by neutral powers in consequence of the war. 224 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. This is only an approximation, as tlie writer says that it is impossible to estimate the absolute cost of a war, since its influence on trade and industry, though immense, is indefinite. Austria, about $100,000,000 ; France, $100,- 000,000 ; Piedmont, $20,000,000 ; other Itahan States, $4,- 000,000 ; Eussia, $6,000,000 ; England, $4,400,000 ; Ger- many, $25,600,000 : making a total of $260,000,000. Or we may approximate the point from another class of statistics. Look for a moment at the expense of " standing armies," or " peace establishments." Before the outbreak of the late European wars, the " peace establishments " of the five principal States were reported at 1,825,000 men; Great Britain, 300,000; France, 350,000 ; Bussia, 750,000 ; Austria, 275,000 and Prussia 150,000 ; and at an annual cost of $600,000,000. And if the other States be added it would swell the number of men to 2,800,000. And if we estimate the ex- pense of each soldier at $500 a year, and the annual loss to productive industry at $150 for each, we should then have an aggregate of $l,400,000j000, and a loss of services to the industry of the country of $420,000,000 ; or a grand total of $1,820,000,000. And if we may esti- mate the average Hfe of a soldier at ten years, we should find that five nations are paying, in time of peace, simply for military service, the enormous sum of $6,000,000,000 every ten years ; and including the huge collaterals we have named for time lost and industry deranged, the amount reaches the inconceivable aggregate of $18,000,000,000. And this, not to prosecute war, but simply to keep them- selves in readiness for war. Yet the above estimate is but a fraction of the number of the regular armies of Europe in the days of wars and rumors of wars, (1870-71.) Italy is said to have an army of 900,000 ; France, 1,200,000 ; Eussia, 1,400,000 ; Aus- tria, 1,200,000 and the German Empire, 1,300,000: STANDING ARMIES IN TIME OF PEACE. 225 making an aggregate, with the contingents of several of the European States, of seven millions of men ; which will more than double the enormous expenditures above reported. One unaccustomed to keep an eye on such matters would form very inadequate notions of the ex- penditures of our own peace-preserving neutral country for the same purposes. During the last fifty years, (pre- vious to our late war,) and those mostly years of peace, the army and armed forces of the United States cost the nation $466,713,000. The navy and naval operations $209,994,000. Pensions, $61,170,000. The Indian depart- ment, $390,000,000. Total, the truly republican sum of $1,127,887,000. Or take a portion of that same period, say from 1816 to 1834 — eighteen years of peace — and our national expenses amounted to $468,000,000, of which nearly $400,000,000, about six sevenths of the whole, were for war purposes. It is estimated that the support of her war system is costing Europe in time of peace $1,- 000,000,000 a year, besides the interest on her war debts, which amount to $10,000,000,000. For twenty years from 1797, England spent for war purposes alone more than $1,000,000 every day. The wars of all Europe, from 1783 to 1815, cost $15,000,000,000. But ambition is not the only procuring cause of strifes and war. Betaliation — revenge, hke the " tongue," is " a fire, a world of iniquity. It setteth on fire the course of nature ; and it is set on fire of hell." The spirit of re- venge, often maturing and culminating in wars the most bitter and desolating, is another demon that makes the most fearful inroads into the domain of wealth. To this account we may set down not a few of the wars that have cursed the nations and wasted their treasures ; and not a few of the litigations and lawsuits that lay waste, Hke the devouring locusts, the fair heritage of man. Would we appreciate the difference in the expense of 15 226 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. fighting and exterminating a people; or of civilizing and christianizing them, we may find an illustration in our connection and deahngs with the North American Indians. The commissioner states the humiliating fact, that'sinc© the first appropriation bj the Indian Bureau for educa- tional purposes in 1806, only $8,000,000 have been expen- ded for this object, and at least five hundred millions for Indian wars. He estimates our total Indian population at 380,629 persons, of whom 95,000 are of school age. Only 153 schools are known to be in operation, with 6,024 scholars. The total appropriations by Congress, and others for this current year for this purpose are $289,000. III. The bottomless Pit, whose remorseless maw devours more treasure than even devastating war, is in- temperance. The amount of money engulphed here is, as we have elsewhere shown, beyond all calculation. Additional facts may be adduced. The intoxicating drink itself is but an item. The buildings and all the needful appliances for conducting the traffic ; the time of the traffickers and the consumers ; the loss and destruction of property ; injury done to industry, trade and com- merce, all come in, as we have seen, to swell the amount beyond all decent bounds. Great Britain has paid more for intoxicating drinks the -last ten years than the whole amount of her vast national debt — which is ,£1,000,000,- 000— or $500,000,000 annually. This estimate is believed to be quite within bounds. "We have seen the following statement as touching simply the cost of hquors consumed in Great Britain and Ireland for 1870 ; and it will be seen that the total leaves but a small margin for aU collateral wastes. Great Britain stands charged with the annual consumption of 29,000,- 000 gallons of home and foreign spirits, at a cost of $150,- 000,000 ; with 750,000,000 gaUons of beer, at $218,750,- 000; with 15,000,000 gallons of foreign and colonial EUM THE GREAT DESTEOIER. ' 227 wines at a cost of $65,000,000 ; and cider and domestic wines, $7,500,000— a total of $441,250,000— wMch leaves but $58,000,000 for unestimated costs, to make up the $500,000,000 as above. We already have an average of sixteen dollars for every inhabitant of the kingdom ; or sixty-five dollars for each adult. We seem to approach nearer to the root of the evil and to be able the better to appreciate the wicked perversion of the good things of our heavenly Father when we come to inquire whence are these intoxicating drinks ? Come they of the thorn and the brier ? Are they manufactured from earth's poisons, that they should be the vicegerents of sin and Satan, to spread death and all its woes among the children of men? Are they compounded, decocted and demonized, from earth's vilest products, and thus fitted only for the work of devastation and woe ? No : the great Perverter of all good here shows the dire per- fection of all his wicked devices among the children of men, — that, by the most heaven-provoking perversion of one of heaven's most precious gifts to man, he produced the fatal drink which curses and kills, out of grain, the staff of life, which our bountiful Parent gave as the great- est temporal gift to man. In Great Britain fifty milHons of bushels of grain are annually used to make drunkards, paupers and criminals. And a yet larger quantity is, in the United States, in hke manner perverted from being man's greatest blessing to be his greatest curse. Or confine we our calculations to a single city, and what idea do we get of the criminal waste of intemperance in its current history of a single year ! Supposing the daily sales at the 8,000 hotels, drinking saloons and grogshops in the city of New York average $10 each — which is a very low estimate — the amount would be $80,000 a day ; $2,400,000 a month ; $28,800,000 a year. And this re- 228 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN, presents scarcely more than one half of the actual waste of intemperance in that one city. We should not have to go far in estimating property destroyed, trade injured, industry impaired, and time of the trajQB.ckers and drinkers wasted, and we should reach another aggregate quite as large. Some one has given us the following brief summary of the Devil's doings in this line of his devastating march, in Ireland in a single year. The writer calls it the " De- vil's harvest." It is a brief record of rum's doings from year to year. The record says : In Ireland, whiskey, wine and beer are largely con- sumed. The popular drink is whiskey, and almost all the crime of the country is charged upon it. In 1868, 76,000 persons were arrested for drunkenness. The consumption was 5,036,814 gallons of domestic spirits, and 325,995 gal- lons of foreign spirits, with 1,208,233 gallons of beer, and 1,538,209 barrels of wine, costing in all $40,813,785, or an average of $37.50 lor every family. But England and Scotland are no better. And all this misery entailed, and aU this ruin, poverty, affliction and death imposed at such an expense to the country, and what return does she receive ? And this sim- ply the wholesale cost of the damning beverage, or the first item in the appalling account. The Chicago Tribune has an article on the amount of money paid annually by the people of the United States for spirituous liquors and tobacco, the statistics of which are startling. We make the following extracts, and call the attention of domestic as well as poHtical eco- nomists to the record : " There is one expenditure which we never hear these declaimers refer to, or advocate a reduction of, viz., the money spent for liquors. We invite their attention to the statement of the Special Bevenue Commissioner, Mr. TOTAL AMOUNT OF SALES. 229 Wells, in his report to Congress, giving the amount paid out by the people for spirituous and malt liquors during the year 1867. We do not refer to the sales by whole- sale, but to those at retail, sworn to by the retailers, who have paid the hcense tax on their sales. We give the table by States, and the figures represent the amount paid by the drinkers and consumers to the retailers over the counter : AMOUNT OJ" SAIiES OF EETAIL LIQUOR DEALEES. New York $246,617,520 Pennsylvania 152,663,495 lUinois 119,933,945 Ohio 151,734,875 Massachusetts 27,979,575 Maryland 40,561,620 Missouri 54,627,855 Indiana ., 51,418,890 California 59,924,090 Kentucky 50,223,115 Wisconsin 43,818,845 Michigan 52,784,170 Iowa 35,582,695 Connecticut 35,001,230 New Jersey 42,468,740 Maine 8,257,015 Ehode Island 10,234,240 New Hamsphire 12,629,175 Minnesota 14,394,970 Dist. Columbia 10,376,450 Vermont 6,786,065 Kansas 8,503,856 Louisiana 48,021,730 Tennessee 20,283,635 Georgia 25,328,465 230 THE FOOT-PEINTS OP SATAN. Virginia 26,132,905 Alabama 23,025,385 Texas 21,751,250 South Carolina 10,610,625 North Carohna 13,224,340 West Yirginia 8,806,235 Arkansas 7,858,320 Delaware 3,770,355 Mississippi 4,493,305 Oregon 4,261,240 Nevada 4,838,735 Nebraska 3,290,515 Colorado 3,745,215 The Territories 14,169,400 Total $1,483,491,865 Thus it will be seen that during the year 1870 the people of the United States paid for strong drinks over the counter to retail dealers, the sum of fourteen hundred and eighty-three miUions four hundred and ninty-one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five doUars. That sum is more than equal to one-half the, principal and the annual interest of the public debt. That sum, if applied to the payment of the debt, would redeem it all, in gold, in two years. The amount of money paid by actual con- sumers for this strong drink, in three years, would equal the entire debt of the Union, and of all the States and of aU the cities, counties and towns of the United States. The people of the single State of Illinois expend for liquor a sum almost equal to the annual interest of the national debt ! Included in receipts of sales of Hquor dealers are such sums as may have been received for cigars at their bars which do not exceed the value of the liquors imported or CONSUMPTION OF TOBACCO. 231 purchased wliolesale by consumers, and the sum of sales by establishments which make no returns, or fraudulent ones. But the cigars and tobacco sold at the bars of saloons are but a part of the same reckless extrayagance, which wastes upon the useless luxury of strong drink nearly ^^eew hundred millions of dollars a year. During the last year of the war, when the United States had one million of men on its pay-rolls, when it was paying two prices in a depreciated currency for food and clothing, and for labor, and for materials of war, the total expenditures of the government, including the hundreds of thousands of dollars actually stolen, and as much wasted, did not equal the amount of money paid last year to saloon-keepers and other retail hquor dealers by their customers. A people who spend $1,500,000,000 annually to retail dealers of hquors and tobacco ; who spend perhaps $50,000,000 more for liquor imported or purchased wholesale by consumers ; who spend $100,000,000 annu- ally for cigars and tobacco. in other forms, can hardly be said to be badly " oppressed " by a debt, the interest on which is only one-sixteenth of the amount of these reckless expenditures for the luxuries of liquor and tobacco. A man cannot be said to be severely crushed by the weight of his debts who spends in the course of a year for hquor and tobacco a sum equal to two thirds of his share of the national indebtedness. Again, as but too nearly related to our last specifi- cation, the article of tobacco lays in a demand for milUons more. The annual consumption in Great Britain is said to amount to $40,000,000 ; and in the United States to $32,000,000. In the city of New York alone $10,000 are puffed away in smoke daily ; or $3,650,000 a year. Yet this sinks quite into insignificance compared with the con- sumption of some European cities. In the city of Ham- 232 THE FOOT-PKINTS OF SATAN. burg, one sixth the size of New York, more than a million of dollars every year dissolves in smoke. The entire tobacco crop of the world is put down at 4,480,000,000 pounds ; of which the United States pro- duce 200,000,000. Merely the cigars consumed, yearly, in the United States, cost more than all our common schools, and more, some say — possibly it is an exagge- ration— than all our breadstuffs. When we add to all the other items of this most useless, inexcusable of all ex- penditures, the labor of a milUon and a half of men who are employed in the cultivation of tobacco, or in its pre- paration for use, and also the immense quantities of fertile land used for the cultivation, we are able to appreciate in some degree the value — at least the cost — of a single useless, nauseous, hurtful, and therefore, sinful habit. The New York Times, of more than a year ago, was found discoursing very suggestively, and we suppose coiTectly, on this very theme. It says : " The Treasury tables for the past year wiU show some curious and rather striking results. The great grain- growing interest may be thought to figure to poor pur- pose in the list of foreign exports, when it is known that we smoke up, in Spanish cigars, the whole export of wheat, and drink down, in French cognac, the entire ex- port of Indian corn. For the rest of our breadstuffs, the flour sent abroad suffices for something hke two-thirds of the interest on the foreign debt, leaving the rice of South Carolina and the deferred faith of the repudiating States to settle the remainder. " In the fiscal year ending the 30th of June last, the United States exported wheat to the value of $2,555,209. During the calendar year, the city of New York alone im- ported cigars to the amount of $1,878,744, and other ports, say 40 per cent, of the whole, would swell the total VAST SUMS SPENT FOB TOBACCO. 233 to $3,131,216. The difference against us, in these two articles, is barely made good by all the rye, oats, and other small grain, $334,4:71 ; rye meal, $64,476 ; potatoes, $115,121, and apples, $43,635, which we sent out last year. " The export of Indian corn was of the value of $1,540,- 225, and of corn meal, $574,380,— together, $2,114,605. This city imported in one year French cognac and other brandies of the value of $1,494,635, which would be swelled at other ports, allowing New York figures to re- present 60 per cent, only of the whole, to $2,487,161." On the authority of Dr. Coles, I would add, the American Church annually expends $5,000,000 for this vile narcotic, and less than $1,000,000 for the conversion of the world. Eev. Dr. Hawes, of Hartford, Ct., has recently preached a strong sermon against the use of tobacco, which pro- duces quite a sensation. He exhibited facts and statistics showing its destruction of health and sanity, its demoral- izing influence, and its useless expense. It costs the people of the United States over forty million dollars annually — far more than is spent for all purposes of education. New York city uses up daily $10,000 in cigars and $8,500 in bread. How a Christian could use it, sell it, or cultivate it, was what he could not under- stand. He predicted that the valley of the Connecticut would be blasted by it, and become as barren as the old tobacco-fields of Virginia and Maryland. It is not generally known that the civihzed nations of the world derive their chief revenue from tobacco. With- out it the Pope would be bankrupt in a month. Last year the English Government derived $28,000,000 reve- nue, and the French $36,000,000, from the weed that vanishes in smoke. The most of the tobacco which yields to foreign powers their chief revenue is grown in America. 234 THE FOOT-PRINTS OP SATAN. And again ; and in yet nearer affinity, and as a still more malignant agent of man's worst Foe, opium fulfills the nauseous, deleterious mission of tobacco, — only a great deal more so. Like tobacco it is a narcotic — with properties more terribly pungent, more hurtful to body and soul, to nerve, muscle and mind, than all the narcotic quahties of tobacco. It more completely unnerves an. I demoralizes the man than alcohol. A traveller in Turkey thus describes the opium-eaters of Constantin- ople : " Their gestures were frightful ; those who were under the influence of opium talked incoherently ; their features were flushed ; their eyes glaring ; and the gene- ral expression of their countenances horribly wild. The debility, both moral and physical, attendant on the ex- citement, is terrible ; the appetite is soon destroyed, and every fibre in the body trembles. The nerves of the neck become affected, and the muscles get rigid — necks wry and fingers contracted, but still they cannot abandon the custom." Was there ever a more complete triumph of Satanic malignity over man ? Was the image of God ever so completely defaced ? — man ever so nearly made a devil? But our concern with this disgusting topic at present is rather with the pecuniary aspect of it. How much of the Lord's silver and gold is used to entail on man, through this drug, one of the bitterest, the most shame- less curses that disgrace humanity ? It costs more to dement and demorahze men, through this single drug, than all that is expended to reform, educate, elevate and evangelize them through all the benevolent schemes in vogue the world around. Indeed, the cost of opium con- sumed in China alone considerably exceeds the total income of all philanthropic, educational and benevolent societies in all Christendom. In a single city of China (Amoy) there are said to be a thousand shops for the CONSUMPTION OF OPIUM. 235 sale of opium, the annual sales amounting to $1,200,000. And there are four other depots along the coast of the same province. The total amount of opium annually introduced into C/hina, principally from India, we find set down at 81,750 chests — others say 10,000,000 pounds— at a cost of $58,- 228,309. And it may not exceed the truth to suppose that at least an equal quantity is consumed in India, Turkey and the other opium-eating countries of Asia. We shall probably be safe in charging Asia with $116,- 000,000 for the vile use she makes of this drug. But the loss of pecuniary capital is not the worst of it. Not money, but muscle — mind, skiU, industry^ labor, all worse than lost, which swells the account beyond calculation. The complete demoralization of the whole man as soon as fairly seized by the tyranny of opium-eating, is the crowning curse of all. China pays India for opium alone more than the total value of all her exports of teas and silks — the merest tithe of which would put a Bible into every family in the kingdom, supply a Christian literature and support a missionary in every village in the kingdom, and an ade- quate supply for every city. And who wiU credit it that this barbarous, heathenish habit has reached America, and is here extending, and has increased the last twenty-five years in the ratio of six hundred per cent. , and was never increasing so fear- fully as at the present moment. There are already consumed in the United States 150,000 pounds, at a cost of $500,000, of which more than 50,000 pounds are annually consumed in the city of New York. But tobacco and opium are not the only baneful narcotics extensively used. The Indian hemp is used as a substitute for tobacco and opium by 250,000,000 of people ; and the betel nut by half as many more. 236 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. Though we would not place tea and coffee in the same category as tobacco, opium, and other narcotics which are decidedly hurtful, yet they are at best but luxuries, and not altogether harmless. We may at least tell what they cost, and leave the reader to his own judgment whether \h.&j pay. The people of these United States are said to consume 149,000,000 pounds of coffee annually, at a cost (averaging twenty-five cents per pound) of $37,250,000. And Great Britain pays nearly the same. And the two countries pay not less than $50,000,000 for tea. There are consumed in the world nearly 800,000,000 pounds of tea, China appropriating the hon's share. We may set down the world's voluntary tax for tea at $500,000,000. We often arrive at a more appreciable cost of one thing by a comparison with another. By such comparison we shall see how the expense of intemperance looks by the side of some other expenses which are sometimes thought large. The aggregate annually raised for foreign mis- sions, by all Evangelical Churches in Christendom, is $7,000,000. The cost of intoxicating liquors (wholesale) we have shown to be $680,000,000 or $1,860,000 a day. The annual income of all these societies therefore would support the liquor traffic and supply our tipplers a little more than three days. The sum total of the annual incomes of all our societies, benevolent, philanthropic and reforming — exclusive of educational institutions — is $6,835,000. This would serve the same vile purposes less than four days. Again, during the last twenty years the American Churches, through all their benevolent, philan- thropic and educational institutions have devoted'to their several objects $30,000,000.* And the grand aggregate, * Details here may not be -without interest. Reports show that during the last twenty years fifteen societies received and disbursed the follow- ing sums: THE woeld's benevolence. 237 contributed by all the benevolent and kindred societies in Christendom, is $60,000,000.* This immense sum would cater to the insatiable demands of intemperance almost thirty-three days ! Our estimates are here made only on the direct cost of strong drinks : loss of time, cost of litigation, support of criminals and paupers, and the whole indirect expense does not enter into the account. This, when added to the difference between the wholesale and retail cost of liquors, is estimated at least to double the fearful amount. More is wasted in one day, to demoralize, dement, pauperize and ruin men for time and eternity by the intoxicating cup, than is expended both by the Ame- American Bible Society, $5,612,120 American Tract Society, 5,383,488 Home Missionary Society, 2,688,868 Foreign Board of Presbyterian Missions, 2,206,407 American Board of Foreigu Missions, 5,639,983 Foreign Evangelical Society, 184,999 Baptist Home Missionary Society, 510,949 American Anti-Slavery Society, 374,870 Seamen's Friend Society, 391,894 Colonization Society 592,296 American Temperance Society, 72,837 American Society for Ameliorating the Condition of the Jews, 122,265 Education Society 274,769 Female Moral Reformers 63,707 American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society 25,390 Total.- $24,151,479 Other Societies 2,000,000 Total $26,151,479 This is a truly noble aggregate, and if the contributions of the ocner minor societies of a religious and benevolent character were added, the total would amount to at least thirty miUions of dollars. * To America is credited $30,000,000. To Great Britain $28,000,000. And to the rest of Christendom $2,000,000. 238 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. rican Bible Society and the American Board of Foreign Missions, in a year! Wliat would the "god of this world" have more? As far as money is concerned, is not his usurpation almost complete ? How much to ruin man ; how Httle to bless him ! Or we might supplement and confirm the above illus- trations of the comparative expense of the useful and the good, with the hurtful, the bad and the ruinous, by like illustrations of a bygone generation. We go back thirty years and hear a speaker discoursing on the comparative cost of missions and intemperance, replying to the cavil that the former is a waste — that so much money is sent out of the country. Even at that period, when he esti- mates the cost of intoxicating drinks much below the present fearful expense, a startHng contrast is presented. Take the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions for an example, — the oldest, most extensive, and distinguished institution we have. The whole amount of its receipts into the treasury for the first 31 years ($2,753,605) does not equal the cost of foreign distilled spirits and wines/or /o?^r months. "We see, then, who it is, that is likely to send all the money out of the country, — the missionary societies or the consumers of foreign liquors. More is paid out infour montlis for foreign liquors than ALL that has been paid into the treasury of the American Board in 31 years. Let us take five years, and compare the cost of foreign liquors in those years, with the donations to the Ameri- can Board iox foreign missions in those years. The American Board received in five years, $889,879 56 Paid for foreign liquors in five years, .... $8,455,345 20 (Estimating these at one dollar per gallon,) which is for six months, $845,534, 00 The consumption of foreign liquors, therefore, sends COMPAEATIVE WASTE OP EUM. 239 nearly as mucli money out of tlie country in six montJis, as the American Board for Foreign Missions, in five years ! If the consumers of foreign liquors will give us what they send out of the country in 40 days, it will sustain the American Board for 365 days, better than it is sustained now. The American Board is not one ninth the expense incurred by the consumption of foreign liquors alone. Let not the consumers complain that foreign missions are making the country poor. If we had the income of five of the most prominent benevolent societies of our land, we should not have enough to pay the direct cost of the spirituous hquors con- sumed in our country mfive days ! Men of strong drink are giving more for their beverage in five days than all that is given in a year, by the benevolent, to these five prominent institutions ! Is it worth while for drinking people to complain about the cost of these objects? "Why, if they would abstain for one week, out of the fifty- two, (even if they drank on Sunday,) they would save enough to sustain these ^ve societies for a year. Qr take up the accounts, then, of these^ five benevolent institutions from their first organization, and you would not have enough to pay the direct cost of strong drink in our land for 54 days ! Bear with me a httle longer. Some of us may be more familiar and interested, perhaps, in pohtical economy, and internal improvements, than in such benevolent associations. More grain is consumed in this city, month by month, and year by year, for distillation into ardent spirits, than all that is consumed for food, by all the inhabitants, and all the horses, cows, and other animals, in this city ! Let the political economist, and those taxed to support the poor, make the application — let them judge of this business of distillation. 240 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. We boast, in this State, of the Erie Canal. It is the most stupendous structure for artiJ&cial navigation in the world. It has given us a name abroad, and constitutes one of the bold items of our nation's glory, among the' older nations of the globe. It cost much. Its official proposal to the Legislature was loudly scouted, as a scheme of wildness and extravagant expenditure. It was said it never could be paid for ; and every year, for 24 years, the subject of its expense, and the payment of it, have occupied no smaU portion of attention among our legislators at Albany. It cost $10,731,595. This is a great sum for our legislators to grapple with ! Men of strong drink could easily take care of it. They pay enough to cancel every cent of the whole expense of building it in 93 days ! But, let us add this to others : The 363 miles of the Erie Canal cost, $10,731,595 The 97 miles of the Chenango Canal, 2,009,582 The 76 miles of the Champlain Canal, 1,179,872 Making a total of, $13,921,049 These are the three great works of the State. But the cost of the spirituous hquors consumed in our nation would pay every cent for the whole of them in FOUR MONTHS ! And here this proud " Empire State " has been embarrassing herself with this debt for 24 years ! and it is not paid yet ! What a glorious day that, when the silver and the gold, and aU that now constitutes wealth, shall be devoted to God and to the highest interests of man. No desert will then remain unreclaimed. No thorn or brier infe st the earth. No caU of philanthropy or benevolence shall go unheeded. " Every valley shall be exalted and every THE EAETH BENOVATED. 241 mountain and hill shall be made low : the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain." Through human skill and labor and a profuse expenditure of money — all rescued from the demoraUzation and dese- cration of intemperance — the deformities and wastes of earth shall be restored, and peace and plenty bless a yet happier race. It shall extenuate the curse under which man has so long groaned — reheve from poverty, reclaim from vice, enhghten the ignorant, elevate the lowly, and furnish ample means to restore, with heaven's blessing, all that sin has taken away. The conversion of money, and its rescue from the grasp of the Foe, and its devotion to the service of our King, shall be the tahsman, the signal, and the efficient instru- mentaUty of the final renovation of the world. 16 XI. THE PERYERSIOJ^ OF WEALTH. (continued.) MODERN EXTEAVAGANCE — EXPENSE OP CEIME — OF AMUSE- MENTS— OE FALSE RELIGIONS — ^AVARICE — ^WICKED INVEST- MENTS. We may not stop here. In nothing, rather than in the monopoly of money, does the Devil show himself a roar- ing lion going about seeking whom he may devour. Like the horse-leech he ever cries, Give, give. "We have other items of no small magnitude to charge to his ac- count. We may name Extravagance as another of the all-de- vouring demons that never say " enough." Their name is Legion. Extravagance in dress, in modes of hving, in amusements, but too often absorbs money by the hun- dreds or thousands, where the real necessities of life, or its charities, are satisfied with units or tens. We should find no end of enumerating here. Nor should we weU know in all cases how to discriminate between what is a prudent and justifiable expenditure, and what is culpable extravagance. Yet there are cases enough that are be- yond doubt, and allow of no extenuation. TJNEQUAL DISTEIBUTION. 243 But the common forms of extravagance, prodigal as fchey often are, are harmless compared with that which very naturally accompanies overgrown estates and high positions in life. Extravagance owes its origin, in some good degree, to the unequal division of property, and the temptations which the favored class have to a profuse and oftentimes a foolish use of riches. A wise and be- nevolent Providence has, as a Good Father, kindly con- sidered the wants of his children. In our Father's house there is " enough and to spare " for all. If the Divine scheme were followed out, there could be no such thing as suffering and want on the one side, if there were not superabundance, surfeiting, and monopoly on the other. The extent of the extravagance and monopoly of the rich just measures the extent of the want and suffering of the poor. The one is the cause and counterpart of the other. The idea finds a very obvious illustration in England — though we by no. means lack illustrations in our own country. England has thirty-two million acres of land. This would give each family, if equally divided, land enough (two acres to each individual) to place the whole in a state of comfort and competence — in connection, we mean, with mechanical and other avocations of the peo- ple. But what is the fact ? "What of unequal division — of overgrown estates and monopolies, extravagance and oppression on the one hand, and poverty, suffering, dis- content, and revolt on the other. The practical working of the present unequal distri- bution of wealth, and the mischief of monopoly, is well set forth in the following paragraphs : Some of the New York Fifth Avenue " swells " make very respectable attempts to do the " palatial " in their houses and style of living, and put forth ambitious efforts to imitate Enghsh country seats, the possession of 2M THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. which, the English call " a snug box," on the Hudson River, and ten, twenty, or a hundred acres. An account before us of the luxurious style of living among the English aristocracy, throws our parvenu pretenders considerably into the shade : About sixty miles from London, is the estate of the Earl of Spencer, which comprises ten thousand acres, divided into parks, meadows, pastures, woods and gardens. His library contains fifty thousand volumes, and it said to be the finest private library in the world. The Duke of Bichmond's home farm consists of twenty- three thousand acres, or over thirty-five square miles, and this in crowded England, which has in all an area of only 50,000 square miles, or just 32,000,000 acres, giving, were the land divided, but two acres to each inhabitant. The residence of the Duke is fitted up with oriental magnificence. Twenty-five race horses stand in his stables, each under the care of a special groom. The dishes and plates upon the tables are all of porcelain, silver and gold. His aviary is suppHed with almost every variety of rare and elegant birds, and large herds of cattle, sheep and deer are spread over the immense lawns. The same authority from which we gather these facts, says that the Duke of Devonshire's palace, at Chatsworth, excels in magnificence any other of the kingdom. He spends the whole of his enormous income. In the grounds about the palace are kept 400 head of cattle, and 1,400 deer. The kitchen garden contains 12 acres, and is filled with almost every species of fruit and vege- tables. A vast ahoretum, connected with this establish- ment, is designed to contain a sample of every tree that grows. There is also a glass conservatory, 397 feet in length, 112 feet in breadth and 67 feet in height, covered by 75,000 square feet of glass, and warmed by seven miles DUKE OF DEVONSHIKE. 245 of pipe, conveying hot water. One plant was obtained from India by a special messenger, and is valued at $10,000. One of the fountains, near the house, plays 276 feet high, said to be the highest jet in the world. Chatsworth contains 3,500 acres, but the Duke owns 96,000 acres in Derbyshire. Within, the entire is one vast scene of paintings, sculpture, mosaic work, carved wainscoting, and all the elegances and luxuries within the reach of almost boundless wealth and refined taste. Five-sixths of the soil in England is divided among scarcely thirty thousand proprietors. There are twenty- nine bankers in London, whose transactions yearly em- brace six or seven himdred millions sterling. This is one side of the picture. The struggle between capital and labor is fearful — the rich always becoming richer, and the poor poorer. Three hundred thousand persons die of famine in a year, and three hundred thousand volun- tarily emigrate in order to escape the same dismal doom. We would not fail here to notice that the degree of privation and suffering on the one side is but the exact counterpart of the plethora and extravagance of the other. The unnatural accumulation and wasteful expen- diture of a few, simply means the impoverishment and the suffering of the many. But the simple fact of the accumulation of great for- tunes on the one part, and a corresponding poverty on the other, is by no means the worst of it. Great estates may be inherited, or otherwise honestly acquired ; and they may be, in a commendable manner, consecrated to the good of man and the service of the great Master. And the poverty of the poor, bad as it is, is not the worst evil humanity is heir to. When these mammoth fortunes are fraudulently obtained ; when the accumulation in- volves dishonesty, thefts, and every species of Satanic craft and guile ; and when the unrighteous mammon is 246 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. used only to corrupt society and degrade humanity, tlien we see the hand of the Devil in it. The world perhaps never before witnessed a perver- sion in the matter of money so disgraceful to all decent humanity as has been perpetrated in the monopolies, but more especially in the doings of the " Kings " of a few years past. But we will not go into details here. We take courage that better times are coming, simply from the fact that the Devil has here done his worst, and therefore he cannot improve on the past. But we must have a word more with Old England. We are told of one hundred and ninety-five individuals in Great Britain who hold $1,74:5,000,000 worth of British consols ; an average of nearly $9,000,000 to each. And will any one tell us here how many starvelings are made by each one of these " bloated bondholders ?" Lord Derby has an annual income of £190,000, or $1,000,000. This would give a competence or a good working capital (of ten thousand dollars to each) to a hundred families. Our thought is well illustrated by the following notice of the great money king of Europe, the late Baron Kothschild. We doubt if any ordinary person can contemplate, without serious misgivings, the announcement that Baron Bothschild, who recently died in Paris, was worth two thousand million of francs, or four hundred millions of dollars. It was observed at the time that he was a charitable man, and that the poor of Paris deplored his loss deeply. Yet during all the long weary years that he was en- gaged in amassing that stupendous fortune, men and women were starving to death, or committing suicide from want and suffering in that very city of Paris. Who can tell the multitude of unfortunates who, wrecked in iortune by the changes on the Bourse wrought or con- BAKON ROTHSCHILD. 247 trolled by this man, have plunged into eternity to escape suffering and reproach? Who can tell how often the loaves of the baker have been reduced and the poor punished because some of the Rothschilds had run up the flour market ? Who can tell how many widows and orphans have had their httle all engulfed in the maelstrom of fiscal operations that brought ruin to thousands and fortune to him ? Charity ! How many millions did he give to the poor ? In order to be truly charitable he ought to have deyoted about haK his fortune to such purposes, for nothing else would have relieved him of the responsibihty for the evil he had wrought in seeking to pile up such tremendous hoards. Stephen Girard achieved a colossal fortune in commerce, but he left the bulk of it to educate the orphan children of the poor. John McDonough, of New Orleans, followed his example. George Peabody did not wait for his death-bed to warn him of his duty. He gave his millions to the needy. Eothschild could not take his money with him into the next world. All he carried with him to the grave was a wooden box. But he still contrived to let the evil of his system survive him. For the wealth of the Eoth- schilds is jealously guarded against division by prevent- ing the children from marrying out of the family. Even to the day of his death he managed to keep those near- est to him ignorant of half his wealth by opening a great number of accounts in false names. How often have the schemes of this dead Rothschild produced embarrassments in the markets of America? How often has he not spread ruin over thousands of our countrymen by means of influence centering in his house in London and Paris, over which no American could have any control ? There have been times when such men were supposed to have rendered great public services by 248 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. the command of fiscal resources. But the late Em- peror of France at last emancipated governments from dependence on this class, by means of his great popular loans, raised by appeal to the whole mass of the people. That invention has exploded the bubble on which the reputation of men like Kothschild had been resting. In any age, in any country, under any circumstances, such colossal fortunes are nuisances. So far from benefiting the people in any way, they increase the downward ten- dencies of the poorer classes ; and all the benevolence the millionnaires can achieve by their gifts or bequests will not atone for the misery they inflict upon millions of the human race. The summer residence and snug little country seat of the Baron contained 37,000 acres of park and grounds. By this appropriation to one individual — not to meet his necessities but his luxuries — ^just one thousand families were left without a snug homestead of thirty-seven acres each — the means of a comfortable and independent subsistence in all time to come. Whether or not the Baron disbursed bountifully as he had bountifully received we do not assert. We find in his record one instance of his hospitality which looks sufficiently large. It is the visit to his superb mansion, in 1865, of the French Emperor (Napoleon III.) This visit of a few days cost the noble Baron the nice httle sum of a milHon of francs. W^e are often asked if there are no signs that the expensiveness of Enghsh society, especially in the higher ranks, may speedily begin to decrease. We see no signs of it, and hold it to be much more probable that we are on the eve of an era of ostentation as tawdry and of ex- travagance as pitiable as that which marks the past. That is the American tendency, and we see nothing, no new and strong idea, which should mark off the manners MTTT.TONNAIBES. 24:9 of our society from those of the wealthy classes of Great Britain. Public hfe is becoming rather less than more attractive to those who have all but power. The taste of art which is developing rapidly is the most ex- pensive of all tastes, except the taste for gambling, and that is not on the decrease. The millionnaires are becom- ing more numerous every day, and certainly do not spend their wealth more for the public benefit. The electors seem every year to prefer the great spenders as repre- sentatives, while the wealthy, who might check the evil, are experimenting in a new and most costly en- joyment— that of becoming the leaders of cosmopolitan waste, and, like the patricians of Borne and Spain, main- taining establishments in a dozen countries at once. It is, says the London Spectator, coming rapidly to this — that a first class leader of society, with a first class for- tune, to be " on a level with his position," wants or chooses to think he wants, a house in London, a house on the river, two palaces at least in the country, a shoot- ing-box in the Highlands, a hotel in Paris as costly as his London house, a villa at Como, a floor in Rome, an establishment in Cairo or Oonstantine, a yacht, a theatre, and a racing stud, and then thinks that life is as mono- tonous as it was when " in his cool hall with haggard eyes the Roman noble lay." Exorbitant salaries are somewhat akin to overgrown estates. They are income from another species of capital, and are but too often the result of fraud and despotism. Both Church and State afford examples of this kind o± money monopoly. The annual revenue of the clergy of the Church establishment of England is more than $42,000,000. The income of the bishops is enormous. That of 28 amounts to nearly a million. Eor instance, the Archbishop of Canterbury receives $75,000 ; of York, $50,000 ; the Bishop of London, $50,000; of Durham, 250 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. $40,000 ; of Wincliester, $35,000. The salaries of the inferior clergy are grossly unequal. For instance 1,500 get annually about $5,000, while another 1,500, though working ministers get but from $400 to $200 each. But these are moderate when compared with the reve- nues of the Pope and the great ones of the Bomish Hier- archy. Nowhere does the power of money tell more effectively for evil. The matter of excessive salaries in general, belongs more properly to our next chapter. Other occasions of culpable extravagance are weddings and funerals. Funeral Extravagance. — The remark of the gentleman who said he could not afford to die in New York has doubtless been echoed by many a victim to funeral bills. The following sensible discussion of the subject is from Hearth and Home : The desire for display on funeral occasions keeps pace with the passion for expensive weddings, until some people have come to act as if they thought all of one's worldly goods should be expended in commemorating his marriage and death. A few years ago a simple coffin, plain hearse, and a few carriages were looked upon as a sufficient manifestation of respect and regard for the dead. Now costly shrouds and appointments, the most expensive coffins, and long trains of carriages are regard- ed as essential to a " genteel" funeral. Those who have wealth can make these outlays without infringing upon their actual wants. Fashion's dictates, however, lead many thousands to pursue a similar course, when by so doing they rob themselves of the necessaries of hfe. How many widows devote to their funerals more than half the funds left by husbands ; and how many children, in displaying a final regard for death of parents, encroach upon their bread money ! As the young married couple will squander hundreds of dollars on a showy wedding COST OF AMUSEMENTS. 251 tour, and return to take lodgings in the sky-parlor of a cheap boarding-house, so will widows and children often deyote to a husband's and parent's funeral, what is actu- ally required to keep soul and body together, and aU to conform to custom and be "genteel." We have spoken plainly on this subject, but it demands plain speech. Funeral extravagance has become a cry- ing evil, bearing heavily upon the middle and lower classes, and no false notions of delicacy should deter either the pulpit or the press from endeavoring to arrest it. Again, immense sums are sunk in the vortex of amuse- ments. We refer now only to hurtful, demorahzing amusements ; as amusements, when neither hurtful nor demoralizing are not necessarily sinful. The cost of amusements is beyond all convenient calculation. There is here a strange infatuation. Men and women who would not give a sixpence to any charity, and who dis- pense most grudgingly even for the comforts, perhaps for the necessaries of hfe, not unfrequently will squander, or more likely suffer their children to squander dollars for some foolish amusement. It would be impractical to do more than to name few of the items that indicate the enormous tax which is here levied by this insidious tyrant. The entire expense hes beyond the power of any one man to ascertain, and not within the sphere of our common arithmetic to calculate. We have an illustration in the expense of theatrical amusements. Yet this is but a drop in the bucket com- pared with the whole amount. There are now in the city of New York, in fuU blast night after night, at most seasons of the year, theatres, capable of holding fourteen thousand persons^ and receiv- ing in the aggregate probably $5,000 per night. Five of these furnish facilities for Hcentiousness by providing 252 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. prostitutes with accommodations in their " third tiers " or otherwise. Take away from a theatre its "third tier " and the accompanying bar, and one of the chief sources of revenue is dried up. " The saloons of the late Broad- way Theatre, when first opened, were rented at $5,000 per annum, and the receipts at the office were nearly $2,000 nightly." Of course these figures form no crite- rion by which to judge other theatres, or even the same estabhshment at the present time ; but taken in connec- tion with the fact that a New York theatre, now extinct, received $800,000 in seven years, they serve to show that time and money and character are not squandered in brothels, gambling-hells, and lottery-ofEi^ces alone. Again : From the fashionable and fascinating opera- houses and baU-rooms down, through a long gradation, to the vile assembhes of " the Points," amusements are graduated so as to gratify every class, however degraded — every taste, however depraved — every desire, however debased. Theatres, circuses, museums, minstrels, mena- geries of the lowest order, model artist exhibitions, sailors' and strumpets' dance-houses, attract audiences, more or less numerous, every night in New York. Time would fail me to tell a tithe of what may be seen on any evening by him who would venture to explore the secret haunts of sin, and it is more than doubtful whether such a narra- tion would serve any good purpose. But there are antecedents to the habitual frequenting of these places of amusements, which need a moment's notice. Unquestionably the bowUng-alleys, billiard- saloons, shooting-galleries, ale-houses, and the attractive and resplendent restaurants, are, to many a youth, the primary schools of vice, in which are learnt the first lessons of irreligion and dissipation. However harmless in themselves some of these places of recreation may be, there are associations formed and habits contracted by THEATEES AND THEIE COST. 253 frequenting them, whose influence sways a hfetime, and imperils the immortal soul. From hence to the theatre is but a step ; from the theatre downward the descent is easy. The following items give us some idea at least of the espensiveness of amusements. In six theatres in New York, and in two places of occasional theatricals, and in one circus, there are from one to two hundred persons employed in each. A single theatre (the Bowery) pays $1,000 to one paper for advertising, besides handbills, cards and posters, amounting to several thousand more. " Hard times," writes a correspondent, " but," continues he, " the theatres were fuR last night to overflowing. The probable receipts for the night, from four theatres, were said to have averaged from $1,000 to $1,600. These four theatres doubtless received not less than $1,000,000 annually — and all the theatres in New York not less than $2,000,000. Such a princely income is re- quired to meet the correspondingly profuse expenditures of these places. The celebrated actor Kean used to be paid at the Drury Lane Theatre <£50 ($250) a night. At Park Theatre actors were paid from $80 to $100 a week. Professor Bronson was offered $1,000 a week. He would accept, if the dissipation and the profanity of the stage could be removed ; and the nuisances could be taken away. But he was told that could not be done! In all this we have said nothing of the immense ex- penditures for buildings, furniture, apparatus, scenery, etc., compared with which all the expenditures for conducting all our philanthropic and benevolent enterprises are but an item. The expense of theatres in New York alone greatly exceeds the expense of all the evangelical pastors' salaries in that great metropolis — and probably we might add the whole expense of aU the benevolent organizations 254 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. of the city. And it is possible that more time and' service is there devoted to theatrical amusements than is by all other classes devoted to religion and the supreme good of man. Friends of religion and good morals, therefore, should not patronize these places of demoralization and waste, but unite their influence and example to suppress so fruitful a source of evil. Scarcely has our arch Foe a more subtle and sure device by which to decoy the multitude on in the broad road to death. Surely he is the god of this world. Items like the following give some idea of the expense of furnishing amusements, and of the willingness of other classes to pay to be amused. An ItaHan singer has received $70,000 for a single season ; and a nobleman has been known to pay $1,500 a year for a single box in an opera. Jenny Lind, the Swedish singer, was offered $200,000 to sing two hundred nights, and all the ex- penses of herself and her father paid, and a carriage al- ways at her command. A late writer gives an aggregate of the annual cost of pubhc amusements in New York city at $7,000,000, and the amount of intoxicating liquors sold at 8,000 drinking places at $16,000,000, or including time and labor wasted and capital involved in the traffic, not less than $48,000,- 000. And, as nearly akin to the last, we might take a few items from the history of gamhlmg, that shall further illus- trate the same profuse and criminal perversion of money. It is said that $35,000,000 are annually lost in the gam- bling houses of London — $5,000,000 have been known to be lost at one house (Brockford's) in a single night. One gambliag saloon in London cost $500,000, and its receipts are half a million a year. But the pecuniary waste of gambling is as nothing compared with the moral devastation. The epithet GAMBLING HELLS AOT) CEIME. 255 applied by common consent to these dens of all manner of iniquity, is aptly significant. They are "gambling hells." And so true are they to their disgusting cog- nomen, so demoraHzing in all their doings, so pestiferous their atmosphere that the common verdict of all decent people is that all the frequenters of these pits " go down to death, their feet take hold on hell." Pomt out a man who is a confirmed gambler, and you need not fear to charge upon him any sin in the whole catalogue of human depravity. Some people perplex themselves about the locality of the Devil. Let them go into a first-class gambling hell about twelve o'clock at night and their doubts will be removed. The enormous expense of crime next demands our attention. Yirtue, religion, benevolence, cost something. But their cost sinks into comparative insignificance by the side of the cost of sin. The slightest glance into the annals of crime will verify the assertion. We may take the number of criminals in the United States, already convicted and suffering the penalty of their guilt, at 20,000, and the number in custody, but not yet convicted, 6,000. The cost of maintaining these, per annum at $200 each, is $5,200,000. Cost of arrest, trial and conviction not less than $3,000,000 a year. And if we admit into the account but a few of the items of the waste and destruction of property perpetrated by this class before their detection, such as waste from rioting, dissipation and drunkenness, say another $3,000,000, and loss by fires, the work of incendiaries, $5,000,000, we shall find ourselves paying (besides incidental wastes not easily calculated) more than $16,000,000 as the more direct, tangible annual expense of crime in a single country ; and this not including the expense of making laws for the suppression of crime, the building of prisons, the support 256 THE FOOT-PEINTS OP SATAN. of magistrates and police, and the whole corps of execu- tive officers. The expense of prisons alone in Great Britain is re- ported to have amounted, in a single year, to more than $2,000,000. And the number of persons convicted of crime the same year was not less than 25,000. But who furnish our criminals and paupers, and how are they made such? A recent publication states that of the criminals in New York city for twenty-one months, 31,088 were natives of this country, while 89,589 were foreigners ; of whom 60,442 were Irish, 9,488 Germans, and 4,000 English. Of 28,821 persons admitted to the alms-house in ten years, 22,468 were foreigners ; 15,948 were Irish, 1,240 Germans, and 1,297 English. During the same time, of •50,015 admitted to Belle vue Hospital, 41,851 were foreigners. Of 4,335 inmates of the lunatic asylum, 3,360 were foreigners. Of 251,344 committed to the city prison, only 59,385 were natives, while 86,431 professed to be members of the Church of Rome. And we have elsewhere seen that a very large percentage of our crimi- nals are made such by the use of intoxicating drinks, one of the most direct and sure agencies of the Devil. But the master-piece of invention by which Satan has contrived to monopoHze the wealth of this world and to secure to himseK the power wealth gives, is that of Pagan Religions. The following facts will indicate something of the profusion of expenditure on account of spurious religions. The celebration of a single feast of the Hindoo goddess, Doorga, costs at Calcutta alone, $2,500,000. And besides this, the bloody sacrifices are enormous. A single indi- vidual (a Rajah) has been known to expend at this festival $45,000. There have been sacrifices on this occasion of 30,000 sheep, and a single Rajah has been known to offer 65,000 animals at a single festival. Indeed, the people EXPENSE OF IDOLATRY. 257 hold everything subject to the call of their gods — money, children, their own bodies and souls. Temples are usu- ally built by individuals. Some cost $10,000, some $100,- 000, others cost millions. In the kingdom of Siam, for a population of four or five millions, there are at least 20,000 priests, and a propor- tionate number of splendid and costly pagodas, all sup- ported by onerous exactions on a priestridden people. The mass of the people, rich and poor, expend far the larger moiety of their earnings or income in offerings to idols, and the countless rites and festivals connected with idol worsliip. The following hst of articles a single wealthy native has been known to offer at the celebration of one festival : 80,000 pounds of sugar ; 1,000 suits of cloth garments ; 1,000 suits of silk, and 1,000 offerings of rice and fruits ; and another to expend upwards of $150,000 at a single festival, and $50,000 annually to the end of his life. It is no uncommon occurrence that a wealthy family is reduced to poverty through their profuse and ostenta- tious offerings to their gods. The Eajah of Burdwan spends $125,000 annually upon priests and idols. Eev. Mr. Werthrecht, speaking of a visit he made to this Eajah, says, " I found him sitting in his treasury. Fifty bags of money, containing $2,000 each were placed before him. " What," said I, " are you doing with all this money?" "It is for my gods," said he. "How?" asked I. "One part is to be sent to Be- nares where I have two fine temples on the river side, and many priests who pray for me. Another part goes to Juggernaut, and a third to Gunga." Here is one native, annually spending, on a class of idle and worse than use- less Brahmins, $100,000. Let the rich Christian receive a profitable hint from the example of this poor, deluded idolater. How long would it require a similar hberality 17 258 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. on the part of Christians in order to extend the blessings of the gospel to the ends of the earth ? It is computed by Rev. Mr. Dean, that the Chinese ex- pend annually for incense alone, to burn before their idols, not less than $360,000,000. And we are told of a Hindoo who expended half a million of dollars in a single festival, and of another who spent two and a half million for the support of idolatry. There is a temple in Mengoon (the largest in the Bur- man empire) which covers twelve acres of ground. In the centre is a room twenty cubits square, in which are placed images of each member of the royal family made of pure gold, the amount of gold in each image equalling in weight the individual for whom it was made ; also images of each nob'leman in the empire, made of white silver, and the silver weighed against each man. Everything about this pagoda is on a scale of vastness almost over- powering. For example, the Hons that guard the stairs leading from the river up to the sacred enclosure, though in a crouchant posture, are ninety feet in height. The celebrated Taj, of Agra, the mausoleum erected by the Emperor Shah Jehan in memory of his favorite begum Noor Mahal, would now cost to build it in India, it is said, not less than $50,000,000. Or turn we to the Romish Church, we meet illustrations none the less striking. This grand counterfeit of the true faith has richly merited the title it has been awarded, of being a " Church of money." Had Satan no other pur- pose in the invention and support of this form of religion than the monopoly of incalculable pecuniary treasures, and by these means abstracting them from the great arena of human progress and Christian benevolence, the design would be worthy of the original. We can go into no calculations as to the millions on millions that are wrenched from the people and absorbed in the parapher- WHAT THE PAPACY COSTS. 259 nalia of tlie Scarlet Beast. In Rev. xvi. 11-19, we liaye a singular description of the superabonnding riches of this great religious delusion. Mammon has laid the abun- dance of his riches at the feet of this religion. How this is done we have a notable illustration in the exactions of this Church in every CathoKc country. We may select Ireland as an example. The history of that priest-ridden, poverty-stricken country furnishes a melancholy chapter on the misery and starvation of a people ground beneath the iron heel of spiritual despotism. But do those who pityingly read this chapter of priestly extortions, comprehend their magnitude ? Do they real- ize what stupendous sums the Bomish priesthood yearly abstract from the industrial avocations of that country ? The following short and imperfect list com- prises nearly $7,000,000, which that already poverty- stricken people are annually paying to support the un- warrantable pretensions of an almost useless priesthood : for confessions $1,500,000, for burials $150,000, for unctions $300,000, for marriages $1,800,000, for dehver- ing from purgatory $500,000, for church collections $2,500,000. This does little more than indicate the mode by which that Church extorts money from the people, and the enormous sums which it extorts. And if starving Ireland pays seven millions annually, simply for the half dozen items named, who shall tell us of the immense revenues of the Woman on the Scarlet Beast in countries more wealthy ? — to say nothing of the nameless wealth held by the Church of Eome as her more permanent inheritance. In nothing perhaps are the cunning devices of our great enemy more conspicuous than in his monopoly of money. Well does he understand that money answers aU things. In the form of bribes it imperils the best 260 THE FGOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. interests of a free people, persuades to every crime and perpetrates every mischief. There is no villainy so black, no murder so atrocious that its perpetration cannot be bought off with money. Money as an incen- tive to crime, blinds the mind, renders obtuse the heart, sears the conscience, obhterates the line between wrong and right, and makes man the victim of dishonesty and shameless wrong. The most disgusting specimens of this species of human depravity and of Satanic incarna- tion are, at this moment, cursing our large cities. Men of wealth, position, education and professional standing, are, by means of bribery and financial chican- ery, perpetrating gigantic frauds themselves, and using the power of their immense and ill-gotten wealth to de- moralize and corrupt others, encouraging them in the same fraudulent course while they themselves reap the wages of their unblushing iniquity. The most blighting curse in a community is a rich man who uses his riches only to oppress and demoralize the people. The power of such a man is irresistible, and if it be arrayed against virtue, morahty and religion it is a living curse. Money, when not sanctified, cherishes pride, absorbs the whole man in the interests of mammon, blinds the eyes of the mind to all future realities, and makes the man but the bond slave of the world, the flesh and the Devil. Instead of the overwhelming power which money is fitted to exercise for good in the world, it is made, by its per- version, the mightiest agency for evil. Avarice, covetousness, love of hoarding — all instiga- tions of the Evil One — absorb a world of the earth's treas- ures, and consequently abstract them from the various uses of benevolence, philanthropy and human improve- ment. What he cannot subsidize directly in his own service he will lock up in the gloomy cells of the miser, and thus quite as effectively withdraw it from the pur- UNEIGHTEOUS INYESTMENTS. 261 poses of useful activity. How mucli is thus perverted and completely neutralized, as to any benejS.t to man or ♦ beast, it is impossible to make any probable estimate. Hundreds of millions are in this way put beyond the reach of any human utility. It was the accursed love of gold that moved the Spaniards to ravage the territories of Mexico, to violate every principle of justice and humanity — to massacre the people, and to perpetrate the most horrid cruelties. And it was the same love of gold which originated the nefa- rious slave trade, and perpetuated, in more lands than ours, the heaven-provoking wrong of human bondage. A^d, as somewhat akin, at least in general consequen- ces, we may add that of a great variety of unrighteous investments of property, which not only contribute noth- ing to human advancement or happiness, but, on the contrary, inflict unmeasured curses — such are investments in distilleries, and in intoxicating drinks, in gin palaces and splendid gambling-houses, in theatres and stocks, in Sabbath-desecrating companies ; and in ten thousand ways in which money is made to serve the Devil and not God. It is thus that " sin reigns unto death," monopolizing the silver and the gold, and taking the cattle on a thou- sand hills and making them serve the purposes of his own vile machinations. All concede money to be an agency of vast power — of almost unlimited power. And we have, to some extent, shown how this power is used — how perverted and made to serve the worst interests of man. But an enemy hath done this. In the " restitution of all things," money shall be rescued from the hands of the Usurper and restored to the service of its rightful owner. " In the latter days " we shall see what a complete transformation there will be in the world when the power and influence 262 THE FOOT-PEINTS OP SATAN of money shall be used to favor tlie cause of righteous- ness on the earth and to beautify the New Jerusalem come down from heaven. The right use of 'property, with all the feelings, principles and activities imphed in such a use, will bring about the Millennium. Inference : What a beautiful, glorious world this will be when the silver and the gold and all its precious things shall be made to contribute to its restitution to its Eden state. And when all its vast resources shall be appropri- ated to bless, and no more to curse man, what an immense population the earth will be capable of sustaining ! xn. THE PERVERSION OF WEALTH. (continued.) KEGAL AND AEISTOCKATIC EXTEAVAGANCE — GEEAT ESTATES — TEMPTATIONS OP EICHES — WASTE OP WEALTH IN THE MATTEE OP EELIGION — TEMPLE OP BELUS — ^JUGGEENAUT — ST PETEE's at EOME — TEMPLE OP SEEINGAPOEE — PEO- TESTANT EXTEAVAGANCE. We do not forget that money is a great power, design- ed on the part of the great Giver as a mighty agency for good. We are in little danger of overestimating the res- ponsibilities of those who are favored of heaven with an abundance of the good things of this world. Had it been the good pleasure of God to have made an equal distri- bution of these good things, there doubtless would have been a happy competence, as we have said, to every community, family or individual — enough to supply every need and minister to every legitimate want and reasonable luxury, but nothing for wanton waste or wicked extrava- gance— nothing to minister to a single vice. The silver and the gold, the products of the mine and the forest, of the sea and the dry land, if equally distributed, would give a generous portion to all. 264: THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. But such is not the plan of Providence. It is rathei lo make a very unequal distribution — to give to the favored few an abundance, and to the great masses sparingly. The plan seems to be to make the few the almoners of the many. Instead of directly supplying the wants of the multitudes, he makes the favored few act in his stead to scatter his bounties to the destitute. In either case he makes it a test of character and a means of grace — the rich how they give, the poor how they receive. We are not without dehghtful examples of the God-like generosity of the rich. Yet these are but the exceptions. The rich receive bountifully but " consume it on their lusts." Examples of this kind are, alas ! but too abund- ant. "We shall quote a few : I. Regal Extravagance. — Kings and queens have respon- sibilities in proportion to the profusion of wealth which falls to their lot. In the day of Zion's glory, when a pure religion shall reign in the whole earth, kings shall become nursing fathers and queens nursing mothers to the Church. They shall bring their silver and their gold with them and devote it "to the name of the Lord their God. The influence of their exalted position, the power of their wealth shall be made to beautify Zion — to build up her walls, to enlarge her borders that she may become co-extensive with the earth. When this shall be, the day of Zion's triumph shall be near. But how different it is now ! Princely wealth is to a lamentable extent but the representative of princely ex- travagance. Yet we do not here forget what is due to position. We would not measure the king by the subject, but accord to him all that by position he may appropriately claim ; yet we shall, in these high places, meet much to be set down to a foolish, wicked extravagance. A few examples will illustrate. We may take as a fair specimen, perhaps the regal COST OF A QUEEN. 265 expenditures of Great Britain. England is a limited monarcliy, and we have a right to expect, where the voice of the people is heard, where the people control the finances, regal expenditures would be measurably re- strained. A few statistics will show. We shall not pre- tend to give a full hst of items. The regular annual allowance of the Queen of Eng- land is X385,000, or nearly $2,000,000 ; of which X60,000 ($300,000) are assigned for the Queen's own private use, and the remainder is expended in the departments of the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Steward, the Master of Horse, the Clerk of the Kitchen, the Gentlemen of the ^ Wine and Beer Cellars, the Mistress of the Eobes, the Groom of the Eobes ; to say nothing of Maids of Honor, Lords in waiting, Hereditary Grand Falconer, and scores of others, consisting mostly of men and women of aristo- cratic rank, all lustily paid, and nearly all sinecures ; and in royal bounties, charities, pensions and special services ; all to keep up the domestic arrangements of royalty. This, however, does not include the expense of a large miUtary corps kept up for the defence and show of the royal state. The following paragraphs give statistics here which may not be void of interest to the reader, as he compares it with the expense of a republican government. " When the present sovereign ascended the throne the allowance which should be made for her maintenance was fixed by a committee of the House of Commons on the basis of the actual expenditure during the last year of the previous reign. The sum finally agreed upon was £385,000, out of which X60,000 is set apart for the privy purse, and the rest is expended in keeping up the royal establishments, in which is included every imaginable species of expenditure which can be deemed necessary to the comfort of the sovereign, and a great deal more, so 266 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. that the X60,000 allotted to the privy purse is absolutely in the Queen's hands, free from all apparent claims, for any purpose whatever. If to this we add some £40,000 a year enjoyed by the late Prince Albert, £38,000 for the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall, and £12,000 ditto for the Duchy of Lancaster, we have a total of about £150,- 000, which accrues yearly to the royal family, over and above the £325,000 of the civil hst, which is spent in maintaining the royal establishments. . With these facts before us nobody can justly complain of the parsimony of the Britsh nation. But what becomes of the immense sum last mentioned, £325,000, over which the Queen has no immediate control, but which is spent in maintaining her vast household? Salaries play an important part here. The figures are terrible ; but we will venture upon a brief summary. " First there is the Lord Steward with £2,000 a year. Under him are the Treasurer, salary £904 ; the Comp- troller of the Household, £904 ; the Master of the House- hold, £1,158; the Clerk of the Kitchen, £700; the Gentlemen of the Wine and Beer Cellars, £500 ; and the Banger of Windsor Home Park (Prince Albert), £500. Besides these sums, the Lord Steward's department ab- sorbs some £25,000 in subordinate salaries and allow- ances. Stepping into another department, we encounter the Lord Chamberlain with £2,000 a year; the Yice Chamberlain, £924; the Keeper of the Privy Purse, whose business it chiefly is to sign checks, £2,000 ; the Mistress of the Robes, £500 ; Groom of the Eobes, £800 ; eight. Ladies of the Bedchamber, £500 each ; eight Maids of Honor, £300 each ; eight Bedchamber Women, £300 each ; eight Lords in Waiting, £702 each ; eight Grooms in Waiting, £335 each ; four Gentlemen Ushers of the Privy Chamber, £200 each ; four Gentlemen Ushers, daily waiters, £150 each ; four Grooms of the Privy APPENDAGES OF EOYALTY. 267 Chamber, .£83 each. ; eight quarterly waiters, XlOO each ; ten Grooms of the Great Chamber, =£40 each ; Master of the Ceremonies, <£300 ; five Pages of the Back Stairs £400 each ; six Pages of the Presence, £180 each ; eight Sergeants-at-Arms, £100 each. Then follows the Eccle- siastical Staff of the Household, £1,236 ; the Sanitary estabHshment, £2,700 ; the State Band of Music £1,916 ; the Examiner of Plays, £400 ; Bargemaster and Water- man, £400 ; the Hon. Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms, £5,129 ; the Captain and Gold Stick, £1,000 ; Lieutenant and SUver Stick, £500 ; Standard Bearer and SUver Stick, £380 ; the Body-Guard of Yeomen, £7,100 ; the Gover- nor and Constable of Windsor Castle, £1,120. In the department of Master of Horse we find, the Master him- self, £2,500 ; Chief Equerry, £1,000 ; four Equerries in Ordinary, £750 each ; Crown Equerry, £800 ; Master of the Buckhounds, £1,700 ; and Hereditary Grand Falconer, £1,200. This portentous list does not exhaust all the details of expenditure in the department of salaries, and excluding the cost of what is in the homely phrase called 'living.' Most of the offices above enumerated are filled by members of the aristocracy ; and the duties attached to them are to a great extent merely nominal." Besides all this the Queen draws from the civil lists of Ireland, Scotland, the Duchy of Lancaster etc., as here- ditary revenue, the modest sum of $1,415,000, in addition to the sum of $1,425,000 voted her by Parliament, mak- ing an annual income of $3,340,000 ! Besides this, the Queen is heir to all persons without legal heirs who may die intestate in any part of her empire. Another necessary expense of keeping up the " honor and dignity " of the Crown, was the sum bestowed upon Prince Albert, the Queen's husband. This was fixed by Parliament at $150,000 yearly, and Her Majesty has heaped lucrative appointments upon him, which nearly 268 THE rOOT-PEINTS OP SATAN. double the amount. And there is the further sum of $550,000 for certain dukes, duchesses, etc. The Queen also has the free use of various palaces, which are kept in repair at the public expense. The cost is by no means small, the appropriation for 1856 for palaces, parks, gardens, etc., being $1,248,465. Add this to the actual income of the Queen and Prince Albert, and they will be found to receive as much as $4,988,465 every year, simply for personals and domestic expenditure and hoardings. Whenever the Queen travels by land, the tolls at the turnpikes are remitted, and the Admiralty keep a steam yacht and provide her table when she takes an excursion upon the water. Other large sums for the maintenance of the royal dignity, which do not appear in the above estimate, are sunk in jewelry, plate, etc. The whole collection in what is called the Gold Room, at Windsor Castle, is valued at $12,000,000. This includes only the plate and a few articles of curiosity, as the gold peacock from Delhi, valued at $150,000 ; the footstool of Tippoo Sahib ; a soHd gold lion with crystal eyes, the value of whose gold alone is $70,000; and George the Fourth's celebrated candelebra for the dianer table, is valued at $50,000 ; so heavy that two men are required to lift each ; and gold plate suj0&- cient to dine two hundred and fifty persons with ample changes. The Queen's plate at St. James's Palace alone is esti- mated to be worth $10,000,000. The crown jewels, kept at the Tower of London, are valued at $15,000,000. The crown worn by her Majesty on state occasions is worth about .£150,000, and that used at her coronation is prized at X5,000,000. Around this imperial diadem the visitor sees arranged diadems, sceptres, orbs, swords of justice and mercy, golden spurs, a golden wine fountain three feet high and of the same circumference, a golden THE KOTAL BEDCHAMBEH. 269 baptismal font, chalices, tankards, salt-cellars, spoons, and many other massive utensOs of gold used at the coro- nation of the sovereign, or at the christening of children of the royal family. The crown of state worn by Queen Victoria on the occasion of her daughter's marriage, is valued at $670,000 — " a costly bauble, bedazzled with value enough to en- dow three or four public charities, or half a dozen modern colleges," There are twenty diamonds round the circle of this crown, worth $7,500 each, making $160,000; two large centre diamonds, $10,000 each, making $20,000 ; fifty-four smaller diamonds, placed at the angle of the former, $500 ; four crosses, each composed of twenty-five diamonds, $60,000 ; four large diamonds on the top of the crosses, $20,000 ; twelve diamonds contained in fleur de lis, $50,000 ; eighteen smaller diamonds contained in same, $10,000 ; pearls, diamonds, etc., upon the arches and crosses, $50,000 ; also one hundred and forty-one small diamonds, $25,000 ; twenty-six diamonds in the upper cross, $15,500 ; two circles of pearls about the rim, $15,- 000. Cost of the stones in the crown, exclusive of the metal, $559,500. Such are some of the bedizenments of royalty ; more millions locked up for mere personal adornments than have been expended for the circulation of the Bible and the diffusion of the Gospel since the resurrection and ascension of our Lord, and more than enough to plant the cross on every hillside, and in every valley — on every island and continent on the face of the earth. Or if our Koyal Lady wiU allow us one peep into her bedchamber — having made our way by the courtesy of my Lord Chamberlain, and having saluted by the way some scores of Maids of Honor, Mistress and Groom of K/obes, Ladies of the Bedchamber and Women of the Bedchamber, Ladies and Lords in Waiting, Grooms of 270 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. the Privy Chamber, and Gentlemen Usliers of the Privy Chamber, we at length stand in the august presence of Her Majesty. And what is she doing? "Why, surely what every other feminine mortal does — making her toilet or simply combing her hair, or rather having it combed, or, in more courtly phrase, dressed. But here we meet a man, the famous hair-dresser of London, Mr. Isodore. And what does it cost to adjust the locks of our fair Queen ? And where are all those " Ladies of the Bedchamber," and " Women of the Bedchamber," that this man should be needed for such a service ? But it illustrates again the cost of royalty. Ten thousand dollars a year is the modest salary of Mr. Isodore for dressing Her Majesty's hair twice a day ! And of one of his recent anxious moments, a late paper says : — " Mr. Isodore had gone to London in the morning meaning to return to Windsor in time for toilette, but on arriving at the station was just five minutes too late, and saw the train depart without him. His horror was great, as he knew his want of punctuality would deprive him of his place ; so he was obhged to take a special train ; and the establishment, feeling the importance of his busiuess, put on extra steam and whisked him the eighteen miles in eighteen minutes, for eighteen sterling pounds." Again we see how the money goes as it shps through royal fingers, ia the exchange of kingly presents. Take the following, of recent occurrence, as an example — though not among the most munificent. The Bajah of Cashmere has sent to Queen Victoria a tent of Cashmere shawls, with a bedstead of carved gold, the whole valued at $750,000. But this sinks into the shade as of minor worth when compared with the present of Cleopatra, the famous Queen of Egypt, to her lover Antony. It was a diamond valued at £800,000, or $4,000,000. We refer to England only as an example. Some other THE *'SICK man's" EXPENSES. 271 European courts far outshine her in the gorgeousness of kingly display, as the imperial throne of France, Bussia, Austria, Spain. Take a single item. The diadem worn by the Princess Olga, of Russia, presented by her imperial father, cost 18,000,000 of francs, or $3,384,000. The single central diamond cost a million of francs. For a " sick man," says a recent writer, the Sultan of Turkey manages to dispose of a heap of money upon the personal gratification of himself and household. To " keep the pot boiling " in the imperial kitchen costs $116,160 per month, whilst the royal steeds run away with $38,720 in the same period, supposed to be required to keep oriental nags in good condition. Five princesses and their husbands modestly content themselves with the bagatelle of $267,000 for the necessary expenses of thirty whole days, and a brother of the Sultan hardly makes both ends meet with $48,400 per month. Then thirty-sis wives of the Sultan {dear creatures !) are cut off with $1,548.80 per month each, to which out of charity an annual present of $4,840,000 or $403,333 per month, is distributed among them, by which means they are en- abled to " keep up appearances," and get a supply of sweetmeats, besides buying a few jewels, perhaps. The grand mistress of the treasure, with her twelve female assistants, contrive to perform their duties on a stipend of a trifle over $30,000 per month ; and the 780 female slaves of the imperial harem, who contribute to the pleasure of His Majesty, require only $56,000 to satisfy their moderate wants during the same period. The chief of the eunuchs takes $34,848, and a thousand jani- tors and body guards are provided for at the rate of $67,- 760 per month. The Sultan is fond of music, and a dozen bands charm him for the trifle of $77,740 per month. The Sultan does not forget his old friends, and so those girls, married or unmarried, who have left the 272 THE FOOT-PBINTS OF SATAN. harem, are consoled for the loss of the light of his coun- tenance by pensions amounting altogether to a little over half a million of dollars once in thirty days. And thus the list goes on, until an aggregate of $3,932,314 per month, or $47,187,768 yearly, is reached. And aU for the Sultan and his household. The amount and items seem fabulous, but a French paper avows that they are copied from the imperial registers themselves. And the humble fisherman at Rome has been able thus far to gather up the fragments on the shores, so as to secure a very comfortable subsistence. The income of the Pope is said to be $8,000,000. Of this, $600,000 are appropriated to his private affairs, $2,192,000 to pay interests, $2,700,000 to support the army and police $600,000 to support prisons, and $24,000 to schools. Had we a voice in the councils of His Holiness, we would recommend an exchange of prison and school appropria- tions. $600,000 for schools would, in a few years, render $24,000 for prisons quite sufficient. But would we witness the yet more profuse expenditure of wealth in palaces and imperial courts we must turn to the more luxuriant Orient. The ancient kings of Babylo- nia, of Persia, of India, and at a later date the imperial court of the great Moguls, shone with splendor no longer seen. They were the , concentration of the boundless wealth of the East — of her silver and gold and precious stones. Yet they ministered only to the baser passions of man : to pride, ambition, love of pleasure, and the merest outward show. They had no power to bless the masses, to enlighten the ignorant, or diffuse the blessings of civil- ization and a pure religion. Take as a specimen : The famous Peacock Throne of the Great Mogul of Delhi cost 160,500,000 pounds ster- ling— money enough to defray the whole expenses of Christian institutions for the next generation. "If all SALAEIES AKD EXPENSE OF EOYALTT. 273 tlie cliurclies, cliapels and cathedrals of Scotland," says one, " were swallowed up by an earthquake, a mere frac- tion of its value would be more than sufficient to rebuild them all and replenish them with all the needed furni- tui-e." The palace of the King of Oude, Kaiser Bagh, is said to have cost four millions of dollars. A glance at the salaries of European potentates and the expense of royalty will appropriately supplement the above statistics. The Emperor of Bussia has a salary $8,250,000 ; the Sultan of Turkey, $6,000,000 ; Napoleon III, $5,000,000 ; Emperor of Austria, $4,000,0,00 ; Kmg of Prussia, $3,000,000; Victor Emanuel, $2,400,000; Victoria, $2,200,000; IsabeUa of Spam, $1,800,000; Leopold of Belgium, $500,000. President Grant receives $25,000. The above gives the Emperor of Eussia $25,000 a day ; the Sultan of Turkey, $18,000 ; Napoleon, $14,000 ; Em- peror of Austria, $10,000 ; King of Prussia, $8,210 ; Victor Emanuel, $6,340 ; Queen Victoria, $6,270 ; Leo- pold, $1,643 ; and President Grant, $68.50. And another hst of not less amount represents the appropriations granted for household expenses : Li the above statement we have left out the " pick- ings " (to use an expression of gi'eat modern significance) which iu some of our great cities are esteemed of consid- erably more account than lawful salaries by officeholders. How Louis Napoleon has destroyed the power of France is thus described in the Army and Navy Journal : " The truth is, France has been completely betrayed by the empu-e. Compelled by his insecure tenure upon power to purchase the support of the statesmen who managed the civil, and the generals who directed the mi- litary affairs of the nation, the Emperor has favored fraud 18 274 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. in every branch of tlie service, deceiving a larger civil list than any other monarch in Europe, amounting to 37,- 000,000 francs in money, and the free possession of pa- laces, parks and gardens, his entire income is put at 42,- 000,000 francs, or $8,000,000 in gold. But this was far from enough. The crowds that swarm the streets of Paris, forming a republic out of a despotism, tell of the fraud by which he has taken enormous sums from the" army fund, amounting, it is said, to a further total of 50,- 000,000 francs. The commutation money paid in by rich conscripts has been taken, and the old soldiers who should be found in the ranks as substitutes are not there. Pay is drawn for regiments at their maximum strength, which lack one third of it. Forage, subsistence, mu- nitions, all have been paid for but not bought. In spite of the enormous cost of the armament of the country, Gen. Trochu was obliged to tell a crowd of new-made re- publicans that there were no arms for them." But this direct larceny was by no means all. The fraud was carried still farther, and "fat contracts" have been more common in France than in any other country in the world. The truth is, the personal government was conducted by a set of bold but very needy adventurers ; and if the misfortunes of the ringleader are of a kind to silence the voice of accusation, the infinitely greater mis- fortunes of the people he has misled are such as to rouse it again. History has borne to us the report of many instances of the most foolish extravagance among the old Komans. We copy the following : Cleopatra, at an entertainment given to Antony, swal- lowed a pearl (dissolved in vinegar) worth X80,000. Claudius, the comedian, swallowed one worth £8,000. One single dish cost Esopus £80,000, and Cahgula spent the same for one supper. While the more economical ANCIENT EXTEAVAGANCE. 275 Heliogabalus contented himself with a .£20,000 supper. The usual cost of a repast for Lentulus was 120,000. The same is said to be true of LucuUus. Missilla gave for the house of Anthony £400,000. The fish in Lentulus's pond sold for XSSjOOO. Otho, to finish a part of Nero's palace, spent £187,000. And to chmax the whole (if it be not fabulous) Scaurus is said to have paid for his country house and grounds $5,852,000. When put by the side of some of these instances of regal extravagance, Napoleon's display at his second marriage (with Maria Louisa) seems quite modest. The service of plate alone used at the banquet on that occasion cost 2,000,000 francs. But it shall not always be so. The silver and the gold are the Lord's ; and he will be honored with his own. The time will come when these royal gifts and bounties, yet more bountifully " willjloio together " to adorn the throne of the Great King — to beautify the place of his sanctuary. " Kings shall bring their presents unto thee. The kings of Tarshish and the isles, (the nations of Europe) shall bring presents ; the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shaU fall down be- fore him ; all nations shall serve him." When God shall appear to lift up Zion, now trodded down, " kings shall come to the brightness of her rising. They shall bring gold and incense " — shall lay their riches and honor and glory at the feet of the great king ; and thus shall they " show forth the praises of the Lord." n. History is not wanting in illustrations of the unnat- ural accumulations in the hands of a few, and their waste- ful and wicked extravagance — and of the consequent impoverishment of the many. England again furnishes examples of this perverted wealth — perverted, because locked up in the hands of a few, and for the most part squandered in luxury or sunk in the bottomless pit of 276 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. dissipation, and consequently witliheld from tlie great arena of an everj-day utiKty, — both in ministering to the common wants and comforts of the masses for whom they were providentially intended, — and from the yet wider arena of public improvement and human progress. And of all, and above all, perhaps the gigantic land mo- nopoly of the Enghsh aristocracy is the most disastrous. The Marquis of Breadalbane rides out of his house a hundred miles in a straight line to the sea, on his own property. The Duke of Sutherland owns the county of Sutherland, stretching across Scotland from sea to sea. The Duke of Devonshire, besides his other estates, owns 96,000 acres ia the county of Derby. The Duke of Rich- mond has 40,000 acres at Goodwood, and 300,000 at Gordon Castle. The Duke of Norfolk's park, in the He- brides, contains 500,000 acres. The large domains are growing larger. The great estates are absorbing the smaU freeholds. In 1786, the soil of England was owned by 200,000 corporations and proprietors, and in 1822 by 82,000. These broad estates find room on this nar- row island. All over England, scattered at short intervals among ship-yards, mines and forges, are the paradises of the nobles, where the hvelong repose and refinement are heightened by the contrast with the roar of industry and necessity out of which you have stepped. We append to the above the EnglisJi commentary rather than our own. Of this land monopoly aij. Enghsh writer says : " We should be shocked at the men who would, if they could, seal up the waters in their original fountains, and sell them by measure to fellow-beings famishing with thirst. We should in no qualified terms denounce those who, if they had the power, would bottle up the air and let it out for a price to fellow mortals gasping for breath. We should feel an unutterable detestation of any who WICKED LAND MONOPOLIES. 277 would, if tlaey could, fence out the sun, and let in here and there a raj of the sweet light to those who could pay for it. How, then, can we Justify and consent that our laws should authorize some men to cover with title deeds, and hold as their own, milHons of acres which they cannot occupy, and know not how to improve, while milHons of their fellow-beings, who have hands to work the soil, and skill to direct their labor, have not a rood of earth on which to rear a dwelling-place, much less a field, a vineyard, an orchard, or a garden — as every Jew had — from which to gather food for his family ? " What an astounding fact it is, showing to what lengths Christian men may go in this iniquity of land mo- nopoly, that the soil of Great Britain, occupied by 36,- 000,000 of people, should all be held by a few thousands ; that immense tracts are kept unoccupied, that they may be occasionally visited by their lordly owners for pur- poses of idle and cruel sports, and that those portions of land which the monopolists allow to be used for the purposes for which God made the earth should be- leased and released at such rates that the men and women who till them can, by their utmost dihgence and economy, raise barely enough to pay first rents, and the tithes, and then to keep themselves from starvation !" And who too often is the landlord ? Lord Courtney, son of the Earl of Devon, has an immense estate, yet he is said to owe Xl,200,000 or $6,000,000, and can pay but ten shillings on the pound. During the few past years he has been living at the rate of ^100,000 or $500,000 a year. His tailor's bill in a single year amounted to twelve thousand potmds. But we may come nearer home, even to our own plain republican people. A Philadelphia letter-writer says of a party which was given by Mrs. Rush, a millionnaire of that city, a few days ago : 278 THE FOOT-PEINTS OP SATAN. " About two thousand invitations were issued, and the entire cost of the entertainment, I am informed, was in the vicinity of $20,000, the bare item of bouquets alone costing $1,000, which were distributed- in elegant profu- sion around her splendid mansion. It was nothing but one incessant revelling in luxury from beginning to end. At half -past-four in the morning green tea, sweet bread, and terrapins, as the closing feast preparatory to the de- parture of the remaining guests, were served up." Aad we more than suspect that Madame Eush is not the only millionnaire in this land of republican simphcity who goes into those Httle twenty thousand dollar episodes. The following little item shows how the money goes in one of our young and thriving towns of the West. In one year Quincy, 111., spent $2,604,000 for groceries, $3,682,000 for Hquors and $1,008,000 for tobacco. But how much faster would she grow, and how much more healthful would be her thrift if these vast resources, now perverted only to weaken and demoralize and sadly retard her real prosperity, were employed to further her educational, physical or moral interests. But Quincy is probably not at all singular in her perversion, and worse than waste, of her resources. Perhaps the Devil finds a fairer field for his monopo- lies of wealth in the covering of the outer man than in the feeding of the inner. Dress, dress, extravagance in dress, is his darling device. We shall not pretend to ad- duce exact statistics here ; but only present what some people say on this delicate theme, and leave the gentle reader to compare what we say with what she may hap- pen to Tcnow. " There are in New York and Brooklyn not less than five thousand ladies whose dress bill could not average less than two thousand dollars each, or ten millions for aU. THE COST OF DEAE WOMAN. 279 " There are five thousand more whose dress expenses will average one thousand each, or five millions of dol- lars for the whole number, and five millions of dollars more would not cover the dress expenses of those whose bills average every year from two to five hundred dol- lars. Thus, at a low estimate, the annual cost of dress- ing our fashionable ladies is twenty millions of dollars. Perhaps we should not exceed the truth, if we estimated the annual cost of dressing and jewelling the ladies of New Tork and its vicinity at from thirty to forty mil- lions of dollars. " What wonder that poverty and suffering are so rife in that city? Twenty millions of dollars, to say the least, wasted in finery and extravagance — worse than wasted." Or see how another writer puts it. He says : " It is estimated that there are 5b 0,000 ladies in the United States that spend $250 a year, on an average, for for- eign drygoods, equal to $125,000,000 annually." So much capital withdrawn from home industry and ex- pended in foreign markets. No wonder exchange is so against us. It is said there are not wanting individual ladies who spend on dress alone from $2,000 to $10,000 a year. " A fashionable drygoods dealer advertises a lace scarf worth fifteen hundred dollars. Another has a bri- dal dress, for which he asks twelve hundred dollars. Bonnets at two hundred dollars are not unfrequently sold. Cashmeres, from three hundred and upwards to two thousand dollars, are seen by dozens in a walk along Broadway. A hundred dollars is quite a common price for a silk gown. In a word, extravagance in dress has reached a height which would have frightened our pru- dent grandmothers and appalled their husbands. A fashionable lady spends annually on her milhner, man- 280 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. tua-maker and lace-dealer a sum that would have sup- ported an entire household, even in her own rank in life, in the days of Mrs. Washington." Add to this, expenditures for opera tickets, for a sum- mer trip to the Springs, and for a score of other inevit- able et ceteras, and you get some idea of the compara- tively wanton waste of money carried on year after year by thousands, if not by tens of thousands, of American women. But is this wanton waste and wicked extravagance a sin only of women? A disgusting tale might be re- hearsed on the other side. Wine, cigars, horse-racing, and many foolish, and some unmentionable expenditures absorb their millions, which do but too nearly match with the millions squandered by the other sex. Take the following, which recently appeared in a New York paper, as perhaps not altogether a rare specimen of a Wall-street sprig, who would seem only to need a little more age, and tact and experience, and the means of gratification, to make him a full-grown man in all the fooleries and sins of a fashionable extravagance. " Fast Young Men in Neio York. — To show your readers that extravagance here is not such an exception as those people probably will say who prefer to take a rose-colored view of things financial, I append a copy of a stray piece of paper, apparently forming a part of a memorandum-book, which was found on the street a few days since by one of our New York journalists. The latter permitted me to copy it. It appeared to be the page of a diary, on which a conscientious Wall- street youth had put down his expenses for September 3rd. Here they are : Breakfast at Delmonico $6.00 Omnibus to WaU Street 10 FAST YOUNG MAN's BJIL. 281 Sundries to facilitate business affairs .... 3.00 Bet and lost a hat 10.00 To a poor man 05 Luncheon at Delmonico 2.00 Befreshments in the afternoon 2.00 Omnibus going up town 10 Dinner at the Hoffman House 9.00 Carriage for self and Miss Z 10.00 Ice cream for Miss Z 1.00 Having brought Miss Z. home, went to Pierce's and lost 22.00 Went to Morrissey to regain what I had lost at Pierce's, and lost again 47.00 Left Morrissey and took another carriage 3.50 A man is not made of wood 25.00 Total expenses for September 3rd, $140.75 " Now I do not wish to be understood as saying that all Wall Street people waste their money day after day in the above style, but I do say that the memorandum picked up by my journalistic friend gives a fair example of the manner in which a large class of our influential young men live now-a-days. It is they who give what is called tone to * society,' and it is only when they com- mence to reduce their daily expenses, that there is the least glimmering of a hope that our public expenditures will be kept within bounds." But does not the habit of profuse expenditure make the same individuals liberal givers in every work of be- nevolence and philanthropy ? In reply to this the wri- ter already quoted well exclaims : ' " Give of their substance to objects charitable or mer- ciful ! What have they to give for any benevolent en- terprise after deducting bills for dress, equipage, pas- 282 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. times, luxurious feastings ? Give ? What have they to give when all is on the back or in the wardrobe ? The great mass of the people are living above their income. Who can doubt that this wicked expenditure of God's bounty to gratify pride, ostentation, fashionable eti- quette, is one special cause of the present awful visita- tion, the fearful judgments of the Almighty?" But other instances of waste yet more senseless and disgusting might be quoted. A single example will suf- fice. There died recently in London a notorious glut- ton. Some called him a princely glutton. In ten years he ate up a fortune of .£150,000. He traversed all Eu- rope to gratify his appetite, and had agents in China, Mexico and Canada to supply him with all the rarest delicacies. A single dish cost £50. He waited till his patrimony was consumed before he quitted life. When the fatal day arrived, only one guinea, a single shirt and a battered hat remained. With the guinea he bought a woodcock, which he had served up in the highest style of the culinary art — gave himself two hours' rest for an easy digestion ; then jumped into the Thames from the Westminster Bridge. We may take the following appropriation of a much smaller sum as a beautiful and noteworthy contrast : ^^How Many Hearts were made Happy. — A wealthy lady in Boston on New-year's Day prepared a bounti- ful feast for lj500 poor children of that city in Faneuil Hall, and at the close presented each one with a com- fortable garment and a pair of shoes." The following may be taken in contrast, though it is to be feared it does not exhibit any very singular exam- ple of extravagance. A host of our really fashionable women — may we say fashionable Christian women? — will think the lady in question quite modest in her outward adornments. Some one puts it thus DOLLAES FOB EIBBONS, PENNIES EOE CHEIST. 283 " What I have seen. — I have seen a woman professing to love Ciirist more than the world, clad in a silk dress costing $75 ; making up and trimming of same, $40 ; bonnet, (or apology for one,) $35 ; velvet mantle, $150 ; diamond ring, $500; watch, chain and pin and other trappings, $300 ; total, $1,100 — all hung upon one frail, dying worm. I have seen her at a meeting in behalf of homeless wanderers in New York, wipe her eyes upon an expensive, embroidered handkerchief at the story of their sufferings, and when the contribution-box came round, take from her well-filled portemonnaie, of costly workmanship, twenty-five cents to aid the society formed to promote their welfare. ' Ah,' thought I, ' dollars for ribbons and pennies for Christ !* " If we revert to Roman history we shall meet in the private fortunes of great personages illustrations yet more striking. Croesus possessed in landed property a fortune equal to $8,500,000, besides a large amount of money, slaves and furniture, which amounted to an equal sum. He used to say that a citizen who had not a sufficient sum to support an army or a legion, did not deserve the title of a rich man. The philosopher Seneca had a fortune of $17,500,000. Tiberius, at his death, left $118,120,000, which Cahgula spent in less than twelve months. Ves- pasian, on ascending the throne, estimated all the expenses of the State at $175,000,000. The debts of MHo amounted to $3,000,000. Csesar, before he entered upon any office, owed $14,975,000. He had purchased the friendsip of Curio for $2,500, and that of Lucius Paul- us for $1,500,000. At the time of the assassination of Julius Csesar, Antony was in debt to the amount of $15,- 000,000 : he owed this sum on the ides of March, and it was paid by the kalends of April ; he squandered $2,085- 000,000. Lentulus, the friend of Cicero, is said to have 284 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. been wortla $4,000,000. Apicius spent in dissipation and debaudaerj (he was the great glutton) X500,000, or $2,500,000 ; and finding, on looking into his affairs, that he had only £800,000, ($4,000,000,) he poisoned himseK, not regarding that sum as sufficient for his maintenance. Along with these we may rank the Rothschilds. These milUonnau'es are kings — reign with a power mightier than diplomacy, mightier than war — than common kingly power. It is the power of gold. How rich the Roth- schilds are nobody knows. They are the heirs of Dives and Croesus. Their wealth is a great mysterious problem, which no calculation can solve. The jDower which springs from it is the grander and more imperial because of its unknown and hitherto unmeasured extent. If I should guess at the millions, I should probably fall far on this side of the fact. The mystery of their wealth is, like obscurity which hangs around the every-day life of kings, one of the sources of the awe with which the people regard them. I do not think that any save the Rothschilds themselves know it. In the announcement of the death of Mr. Crawshay, the great iron-manufacturer in England, it is stated that he left an estate of seven million pounds or $35,000,000. Modern wealth has an acknowledged pre-eminence in point of practical utility, and as a power for human pro- gress, over the wealth of the ancients. They were rich in gold and silver and precious stones, yet they were not, in the modern sense of the term, a commercial people. Their immense wealth in the precious metals consisted, not as at present in a large circulating medium, but in ornaments and drinking vessels, temple furniture and utensils, in shields and targets of gold, and the like. It did comparatively little to promote the commerce of that period, and as little to advance the general interests of society. The ancient Persians abounded in the precious WEALTH OF THE ANCIENTS. 235 metals and minerals beyond anything we can at tlie present day well conceive. We read of the " Immortals " of Darius, a choice troop of 10,000 men, who appeared at the battle of Issus clad in robes of gold embroidery, adorned with precious stones, and wore about their necks massy collars of pure gold. The chariot of Darius was supported by statues of gold, and the beams, axle, and wheels were studded with precious stones. Hannibal measured by the bushel the ear-rings taken from the Eomans slain at the battle of Cannae. One is astonished at the immense amount of gold and silver and precious stones which were found by the early conquerors of India, Egypt and South America — not so much as a circulating medium or a representative of trade , as in the hoarded treasures of temples^ sacred utensils, and ornamental trappings. The riches of the ancients, like their learning and science, was of little practical uti- lity. It had little to do with commerce or public im- provement. It was scarcely known then as a lever of human progress, or as an angel of mercy to alleviate hu- man suffering by a well-directed philanthropy. Doubtless there was never a time when the power of money was made to contribute so essentially to the bless- ing and elevating our race as at the present time. It is not because we yet have more of the precious metals in use than the ancients had, but because we make a better use of them. Cahfornia and Australia, and all other El Dorados, may pour their precious treasures into our land for years to come before we shall be " replenished " as was the land of Judah in the days of David and Solo- mon. We have spoken of the wrong done to others — the pri- vations and hardships suffered by the masses, from the overgrown estates of the few ; a surplus in the one case, a rioting in luxury and dissipation among a few, with a 286 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. consequent privation and destitution, undue labor and a life-struggle for a common livelihood among the many. Yet we^ would not overlook what too often proves the yet more deleterious influence of inflated wealth on the owners themselves. We speak not now of the pride, and overweening and tyrannical spirit too often engendered by wealth, nor simply of the extravagance and pleasure- loving proclivities thereby cherished, but of the sadly de- moralizing influence of wealth upon the worldly mind — especially that of sudden wealth. Cases like the follow- ing are not rare. In 1864, one of the principal oil farms in Western Pennsylvania^ the daily income of which was $2,000, was bequeathed to a young man of twenty. He was bewil- dered by his good fortune, and at once entered on a career of mad debauchery, in which he squandered two millions of dollars in twenty months. He is now a door-keeper at a place of amusement, and the farm has been sold for taxes due the government. The- young Duke of Hamil- ton, the representative of the Stuarts, and of the first family in Scotland, some years ago succeeded to an estate the annual income of which was $350,000. By means of horse-racing and attendant forms of dissipation, every one of his lands, his palaces, and town residences, was soon in the hands of Jew money-lenders, and he a pen- sioner of his creditors. Fools and their money are soon parted. The temptations of riches and the facilities they afford for hurtful and forbidden gratifications, make the posses- sion of them doubly dangerous, and impose responsibi- lities and administer cautions of the most serious charac- ter. He that spake as never man spake, gave no needless alarm when he said, " How hardly shall they that have riches (that, trust in riches) enter into the king- dom of God. For it is easier for a camel to go through a COST OF HEATHEN TEMPLES. 287 needle's eye than for the rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." III. We have already in another connection adduced examples of the enormous waste of wealth in the matter of false religions. We shall add a few more and then present a few statistics showing that the true Church is but too deeply involved in the same sin. It is known to have been the custom of the ancients to make their temples the repositories of vast riches, as well as to spend fabulous sums in the edifices and the appur- tenances thereof. The temple of Belus in Babylon was an accumulation of two thousand years. Xerxes, on his return from his Grecian expedition, having first plundered this temple of its immense riches, demolished it entirely. He took away gold, it is said, to the value of X21,000,000 or $100,000,000. The image which Nebuchadnezzar set up was of gold, sixty-six feet high. Another image is described — it may be the original one of the temple — forty feet in height, of pure gold, which contained riches to the amount of a thousand Babylonian talents, or .£3,500,000. And various lesser images contained in the aggregate 5,000 talents, or £17,000,000. Xerxes carried off a golden statue of a god twelve cubits in height. Besides these, vast sums were invested in furniture, utensils, vest- ments, statues, tables, censers, sacred vessels, and altars for sacrifice, all of the purest gold, said to be valued at $100,000,000. This famous temple, having the external appearance of consisting of eight towers built one above the other, stood on a base which was a square of a furlong on each side, and its topmost tower is said to have been a furlong in height, giving the whole the appearance of being one huge pyramid, more magnificent than the pyramids of Egypt. " We have good reason to believe," says Eol- 288 THE TOOT-PRINTS OP SATAN. lin, " as Bocliart asserts, that this is the very same tower which was built there at the confusion of languages." Such a supposition (if it be no more) would seem to give additional appropriateness to our general title. This most stupendous of all idol temples may be taken as the first great, bold challenge of the god of this world in the fierce jonflict now fairly inaugurated for the dominion of the earth. The Temple of Juggernaut at Puri, in the district of Orissa, India, buUt in the 12th century, is said to have cost $2,000,000. The principal tower rises to the height of 184 feet. The wall which surrounds the temple is twenty-one feet high, forming an enclosure 550 feet square. And if we add to this first item in the account the uncounted treasures invested in the paraphernalia of the temple, in the expense of worship, in the rich offerings which are continually made, in pilgrimages thither, and in the annual festivals and immense processions, we have an amount exceeding the entire aggregate expended for Christian missions in India the last fifty years. Yet this is but an item when compared with the expen- ditures of the Papal Church. St. Peter's church at Home is said to have cost, first and last, $200,000,000. But this is no more than the beginning of Rome's expenditures. The investment in the brick and mortar of that magnifi- cent edifice is but a small part of the wealth of St. Peter's. The silver and gold, the sacred vessels and costly vestments, diamonds, precious stones — in all, un- told treasures — are abstracted from the common utihties of life and from the great works of philanthropy and be- nevolence with which the Church of Christ stands charged, and made but to pamper the pride, the ambition and extravagance of the Papal hierarchy. A late traveller, speaking of the churches of Eome and the immense amounts of treasure invested in these ' MONEY AND PAPAL EOME. 289 structures, says " the aggregate would pay the national debt of the United States," which is more than two ' thousand million dollars. What superstition and devo- tion to a spurious Church has done may yet be done by a holy devotion to the true Church. When she shall re- ceive the full Pentecostal baptism spoken of by the Prophet Joel, and the " power " of the Holy Ghost shall come upon her, the channels of her benevolence shall overflow, no resources shaU be wanting for any good work, even to the moral renovation of our entire world. To say nothing of the Vatican, or of Pontifical pala- ces, or the palatial residences of cardinals, or of the un- told sums lavished in regal profusion on the heads of the hierarchy ; it will be sufficiently suggestive if we may catch a ghmpse of a certain procession, but too frequent- ly witnessed by gazers in the Papal capital. It is a pro- cession of the Pope and his cardinals, the successors of the poor fishermen and of Him who had not where to lay his head, as on some great State or rather Church occa- sion they show themselves to the people. The sight is suggestive as to how the money goes in the Holy City — how poor Peter's pence are expended. An eye-witness speaks of the princely carriages of the Pope's cortege, lined with scarlet of the richest texture. The trappings of the horses, the Hveries of the coachmen and footmen, the uniform of the Papal guard, as also the garniture of his throne and the stool for his feet, are of the same glaring hue and costly materials. " Each cardinal has three footmen, one to help him out of the carriage, another to support his scarlet robe, and a third to carry his scarlet parasol." Paganism furnishes a parallel to this. Indeed, the more false a religion, the more lavish the waste of wealth upon it. This is one of the favorite devices of the Devil. India affords examples. Dr. Duff's description of the 19 290 THE FOQT-PBINTS OF SATAN. temple of Seringapore will serve our purpose as one of many. " It is a mile square, and in the centre of each side is a tower of gigantic height, the lowest pillars of which are single pieces of stone, forty feet long and five feet square, reminding the spectator of the stones of Solomon's temple. Within the outer square are six others, three hundred feet distant from each other, and between them are numerous halls. The roof is supported by one thousand pillars, each of one soHd block of stone, very finely carved with figures of the gods and other devices. Siva, aie god of the place, is formed entirely of gold in sohd pieces, the entire height of the statue being fifteen feet. The platform also on which the god rests is of gold. All his ornaments are in proportion to his size. The quanti- ty of emeralds, pearls, and other precious stones which adorn him is immense. No jeweller's shop in London could exhibit anything like it. The whole gives an idea of the immense power of Brahminism in former days, grinding down the people and turning all their wealth towards themselves." How humiliating the comparison of all this with the stinted measure of expenditure for the support and diffu- sion of the true rehgion. The one is by tens, hundreds, or thousands, the other by millions and hundreds of millions. It was not exactly a vain boast of the tempter that the world with its power, wealth and glory was his. His claims have as yet been almost universally conceded. And we would that we did not feel constrained here to pass a stricture on a certain class of good and highly respectable Protestant churches of the present day. We hear of church edifices costing one, two, or three hundred thousand dollars (or more) and the current annual expen- ses of the same churches, five, ten, or twenty thousand ; while they would think themselves pressed beyond endu- COMPAEATIVE EXPENDITUEE. 291 ranee if called on to give a tithe of this sum for the furtherance of benevolent and philanthropic purposes. It is said that the annual aggregate expenses of three churches in New York are seventy thousand dollars. We do not object to a generous expenditure. But only ask why in a locahty where a church edifice costing forty or fifty thousand dollars is suited to the locahty and would afford all needed accommodations, it should be allowed to absorb $100,000, leaving the church with a burden- some debt perhaps, and affordLug a never-failing excuse for a most stinted benevolence, and this at a period when the Master is opening the whole world for its renovation, and, as never before, is calling on his people for the most generous and enlarged benevolence. xm. PERYEESION OF THE PEESS. THE PERIODICAL PEESS — EELIGIOUS PRESS — PRESS CATERINa TO FRAUD, CORRUPTION — LICENTIOUSNESS AND INEIDELITY — ROMANCE — FICTION — HISTORY — THE TONGUE — MUSIC AND SONG — THE CHURCH AND THE OPERA. A SUBJECT kindred to the last is tlie press. The dis- covery of the art of printing is confessedly a very marked era in the annals of human progress. It revealed a new and hitherto unconceived power in furtherance of all the higher and best interests of man. And the time of this discovery claims some special notice. It was just as the energies of the truth and the Church, of civihzation and reform were rousing themselves from their long sleep of a thousand years. Christianity was now as a bride- groom coming out of his chamber and rejoicing as a strong man to run a race. Here commenced a new era in the history of the Christian Church. The night was far spent, the day was at hand. Henceforth she should be nerved with new strength and clad in new armor, and should put forth a new life and go forth to new victories. And among the PERVERSION OF THE PRESS— FASHIONABLE LITERATURE. THE PRESS A BOON TO CHEISTIANITY. 293 elements of power and progress now vouchsafed to her, the press was not the least. I say vouchsafed to the Church, to the one holy, catholic, apostohc Church — to Christianity as a power for the renovation of the world and its final subjugation to Immanuel. The press is a boon to Christianity. It has hitherto been confined al- niost exclusively to Christian nations. Pagan nations have, up to this day, scarcely used the press at all, and Mohammedan nations but very partially. And its use among Christian nations has been, it is believed, very much in the ratio of the purity of the Christianity cur- rent among them. We may therefore, we think, safely assume that the art of printing and the press was a loan to Christianity — or rather to the Reformed Church, to stimulate intel- lect, to diffuse knowledge, and to perpetuate the triumphs of reUgion. As subordinate to these ends the press is in no inferior degree the servant of science, the powerful agent of civihzation, and the auxiliary of every human pursuit. Were it my province at present to speak of the 'power of the press, I should be in no danger of overrating its importance. Its relations to education, to science, to the whole subject of human improvement, to the cause of benevolence and the final conversion of the world, are important above all we are in a position at present to conceive. We are so accustomed to contemplate human affairs in connection with the press and its wonderful reahzations that we can form no adequate conception how many degrees the dial of human improvement would be turned back without it. But for this the history of the arts and sciences of the present day might be lost in the mists of coming ages, as those of past ages only hve in a few imperfect relics and traditions. Our confidence that the tide of barbarism shall never again run over these 294 THE FOOT-PEINTS OP SATAN. fair fields of science, of art and of religion is because all these modem advancements stand chronicled in the en- during page of history. Every science, every art, every invention, discovery or improvement that blesses our age is turitten and jprinted and cannot be lost. Every succeed- ing generation will read, digest and improve on the past, and in their turn leave their record to those who shall foUow. They can never again be buried beneath the rubbish of time. But for the printing press the forty millions of copies of the Word of God which he as good seed scattered broadcast over the world and are accessible to half the population of the globe, translated as it is into 160 differ- ent languages, would be reduced to some few hundreds of copies, and these imprisoned in the libraries of the learned and opulent, and generally inaccessible because locked up in an unknown tongue. The tedious and ex- pensive process of transcribing the Bible with a pen would scarcely allow a more favorable supposition. And what would be found to be so disastrously true in respect to the multiphcation and diffusion of the Bible, would not be less true in respect to education, to com- merce and to the whole business and progress of the world. Annihilate the mighty enginery of the press and you would seem to bring to a most painful stand-still a great part of the machinery which now keeps in motion the wheels of the world's business and advancement. But my business is not with the power of the press, though it is invested with one of the mightiest elements of power which works in human affairs. We are at present concerned with the perversion of this power, and may arrange what we would say on this topic under the following heads, viz., the perversion of the periodical press — of the rehgious press — the prostitution of the press to the service of fraud, of corruption, of hurtful THE PERIODICAL PEESS. 295 amusements, of licentiousness, of infidelity and all sorts of religious error. The Devil never subsidized in his service a mightier engine of mischief, than when he laid his sacrilegious hands on the press. A popular, well written book is a power for good or for evil beyond any possible calculation. Thousands and scores of thousands may read it on its first issue, and if it be an exponent of the truth, and of a .sound morahty, it may endure to all coming generations, a heahng medicine to the soul — the ahment of growth and of mental and spiritual vigor. On the contrary, if it be the vehicle of error, of immorality and vice, it is a poison thrown broadcast over the living masses of men, and eternity alone can compute the number of its victims, or the amount of its mischief. We shall not attempt to present full statistics, but only to indicate the deplorable extent to which the press is perverted and made to subserve the purposes of our arch Foe. I. We may call attention to the periodical press. We are in no danger of overestimating the influence of the newspaper and periodical. As some one has said : " The newspaper is the great educator of the nineteenth century. There is no force to be compared with it ; it is book, pulpit, platform, and forum, aU in one ; and there is not an interest — religious, Hterary, commercial, scien- tific, agricultural, or mechanical — that is not within its grasp. All our churches, schools, colleges, asylums, and art-galleries, feel the quaking of the printing press." The preached gospel is justly conceded to be one of the mightiest agencies for moral reform and human progress, to say nothing of its higher mission. Yet this agency is confined within narrow hmits when compared with the influence of the periodical press. Once or twice in seven days the pulpit speaks to a few thousand congregations, of a few hundreds each, while the newspaper is the morn- 296 THE FOOT-PKINTS OF SATAN, ing visitant of the millions, seven days in the week and three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. In the parlor and the kitchen, in field and in workshop it is the daily, the hourly preacher. It whispers its truth or its error, imparts food or infuses poison by the wayside — in the railway car — in the street and in the counting- room. A small minority of a people are reached by the preacher. The surging masses rise up to welcome the daily messages of the press. " The newspaper is omnipo- tent the land over." " Why, next tb the Bible, the news- paper— swift-winged and everywhere present, flying over the fence, shoved under the door, tossed into the counting-house, laid on the work-bench, and hawked through the cars. All read it — white and black — German, Irish, Swiss, Spaniard, French, and American — old and yoimg, good and bad, sick and well — before breakfast, after tea, Monday morning, and Saturday night, Sunday and week-day." And what may we not expect of the press when it shall put on its great strength ? — ^when it shall be sanctified — consecrateni to the truth, hberty and righteousness — when it shall come forth from the dark chambers of, sin and corruption, and go forth as the herald of light and knowledge among all nations. Aided by the vastly in- creased facihties for travel and by the telegraph (which is the press winged with lightning) extended into every nook and corner of the earth, the press shall become the great preacher — the angel flying through the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach. Not the book, not the teacher, not the preacher shall, from day to day, bring their daily suppHes to tribes and tongues and peoples, that shall daily crave the bread of hfe, but the daily paper — ^the ten thousand times ten thousand streams of sanctified knowledge — the rills and the rivers of the living waters, shall daily, and hourly, and with tkd THE PEESS — HOW PEEVEETED. 297 speed of lightning, course over the broad expanse of the earth, and fertihze all its arid wastes. We do not mean the press shall supplant or in the slightest degree impair the power of the gospel ministry, but rather give it increased vigor, honor and beauty. In its high and holy sphere, the sacred office shall be yet more influential and honored. But alas, for the perversion of the press ! its sad pro- stration before the Dagon of this world ! The almighty newspaper — the daily, the weekly, and the monthly peri- odical— how few of these now give utterance to the sweet messages of truth and righteousness ! How many are the merest pack-horses of sin and shame, while the great mass are neutral for good and only potent for error or frivohty. We shall not pretend to define the proportions by sta- tistics. The common observation of any one will suffice. What proportion of all the newspapers and periodicals within your knowledge are vehicles of truth and safe guides in the great realities of morality and religion ? The great majority are either " mute spectators of the conflict with Satan, or array themselves under his banner by their actual opposition to gospel truth and its deve- lopment." Of 220 newspapers published in New York, only 4.6 (or one fifth) profess to be channels of rehgious influence, while of the remaining 174, fifteen desecrate the Sabbath by making their appearance on that day, twelve are avowedly the organs of German infidelity and rationahsm, and eight bend their energies to the task of sustaining and propagating Popery ; leaving 139 newspapers which may be classed as secular. In addition there are issued from the press in our midst 118 distinct periodicals and magazines, of which 26 298 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. onlj are edited with a view to the dissemination of religious intelligence and instruction. But the open avowed infidelity of some of these publi- cations— their open opposition to the Sabbath, the Bible, the Church and the gospel ministry, and to a pure religion, is not the worst of the evil. Their virus lies deeper, more latent, more subtle, poisonous and perni- cious. They have not less of the world and the flesh than the infidel publications of a former age, but more of the Devil — more of concealed skepticism, more baptized infi- dehty, more rottenness of heart beneath a fair exterior. Under the profession of a more liberal Christianity, a " Christianity for the times," there lurks a poison more dangerous because more subtle then ever cursed the world in the days of Paine or Voltaire. Indeed, the Devil has, through these ten thousand daily avenues of influ- ence, turned reformer, teacher, preacher — anything that may the most effectually subserve the purposes of his craft. As says another when writing on the same theme, " I have purposely avoided particularizing individual exam- ples of recklessness and immorality in the management of that mighty engine which makes the pen more powerful than the sword ; and, if practicable, it would be appropri- ate to follow out this train of thought, and enlarge upon the influence of the metropolitan press, and its almost controlling power over minds and consciences. — But alas ! that this influence is so largely perverted and made only a power for evil." Our periodical press is by no means guiltless, as it re- spects immoral teachings and influences. Few of our journals and periodicals are decidedly on the side of religion, or even of sound morality. " If any one doubt that the powers of darkness, the agents of the adversary of souls, have broken loose upon THE EELIGIOUS PKESS. 299 the world, and are working with prodigious energy at the present day, he need but glance at sonle of the issues of the periodical press and see in what adroit, seductive forms the Enemy is presenting temptations to youthful minds. The agents of evil here display a degree of wis- dom in aiming at the young which the friends of truth may wisely emulate. The snares are laid everywhere to catch the feet of the unwary. The great city, so filled with wickedness, is full of traps and pitfalls into which young men are falhng every day to their ruin." And among the chief of these pitfalls is a corrupt litera- ture. II. The perversion of the religious 'press. We use the term not to designate the true religion, but what in com- mon parlance is called religion. The press is confessedly a mighty agency in the diffusion and defence of our blessed religion. It gives light and power to the Church. It gives expansion to revelation. How restricted was the Word of God — within what narrow limits would it now be confined but for the press ! The preacher of the gos- pel 'proclaims the word, he stereotypes his utterances, whether they be the words of his lips, or the more ma- tured thoughts of his study — writes them as with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond, indelible as if inscribed on the enduring rock. The press gives wings to revela- tion which shall never cease till the end of the earth shall hear thereof. But we need here only adduce the judgment of our enemies as to the power of the religious press. Nothing do the enemies of Christianity so fear as the influence of the press. No pains have they spared to resist it. If they cannot suppress it, they pervert it — turn its muni- tions against the truth. Never has that wisdom which is from beneath been more craftily engaged than in its resis- tance to the religious press where resistance was practic- 300 THE FOOT-PEINTS OP SATAN. able, or monopoly and perversion where opposition was vain. Among Pagan nations, where the reign of the Wicked One bore unquestioned sway, the press had neither place nor power. And the same is essentially true among Mohammedan nations. Not till Christianity introduced the Christian press among the nations before unevangelized as an aggressive power against their sins and errors, did theu' master introduce the infidel press as an defensive power. The press, hke coal and the Enghsh language, is Protestant and Christian. It is only by extortion, per- version and abuse that it is ever used in the defence of error, infidelity or sin, or in any way to the disadvantage of the truth and a pure Christianity. Yet it has been made a most formidable antagonist of aU Christian truth. The father of lies would seem to have exhausted all his wisdom and skill, his depravity and power, in getting up false philosophies of religion, false theologies, rehgious fictions — anything and every- thing that should seem to " know God " yet " glorify Him not as God " — anything and everything that should parry the arrows of the truth and satisfy the mind with error. The .religious press is teeming with books just enough charged with evangelical truth to beguile the unwary mind, and aUay his fears while he is drinking the very dregs of infideHty, disguised and attenuated, yet just enough savored with a deadly yet covert skepticism to neutrahze all the truth. Here we might instance all such works as ' Eenan's Life of Jesus,' ' Ecce Homo,' and most of our modern books of fiction. And most of these books are religious. Taking the garb of rehgion, they stealthily stab rehgion to the heart. And when we consider that books of this character, together with the productions of the irreHgious periodical press, constitute far the greater portion of the reading of A COEEUPT UTEEATUEE. 301 our people, we may form some idea of the controlling power in this line of influence, which the Devil has over the mind of such a people. And if it be so in nations where Christianity has had the growth and maturity of centuries, much more may we expect to find it so among heathen and unevangehzed, where it is but recently introduced. The press is no sooner made an element of influence on the one side to defend and diffuse the truth, than it is brought in as a great antagonistic power to refute if it can, but if not, to pervert the truth and clothe error in its garb. As an ex- ample we may instance what has recently been reported from Syria, especially from Beirut. There the Devil more than keeps pace with the missionary in the use of the press. In Beirut there are seven presses that " are printing books of injurious tendency." One only (the missionary press) is sending out the healing waters into the thirsty ground — seven to one. It has recently been announced with great satisfaction and gratitude, as a promising sign of the times, that the Bible has been translated into Arabic. The hundred millions of that singular race, scattered as they are over all Western Asia and throughout the great continent of Africa, may now read the wonderful things of God. But no sooner does hght arise upon those benighted regions, than the prince of darkness in like manner, by his enchantments, seeks to smother the light by a yet thicker darkness. No sooner is it announced that the Bible has become an open book for the sons of Ishmael, and that the press shall give it wings, than the Devil finds transla- tions to transfer into Arabic, and the infidel press to multiply and infidel clubs to propagate the writings of Voltaire, Eugene Sue and such productions. But at this very point there comes to us a dehghtful instance of how the Devil sometimes gets foiled in his 302 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. deyices. At the very time in Beirut when a great flood of infidel pubhcations were pouring into that point, and threatening to arrest in its very incipiency the work of the gospel, a Scottish missionary relates the following fact : Among those who had been led favorably to regard the claims of Christianity was a young lady, the daughter and heiress of a Jewish family, who manifested a dispo- sition to give her heart to Christ. And there came one to her father, saying, "You need not distress yourself about her conversion ; I have a book that will quench any desire she may have towards Christianity." The book was Eenan's " Life of Jesus." It was placed in her hands. She was a young lady of about nineteen, well educated, gifted by nature with a keen mind, sharpened by judicious discipHne. She read it, and so deeply was she interested that she read it a second time ; and then she came to this missionary, and said, " Eenan's mom never lived. Eenan's concessions to Jesus, as to what he was, prove that he was and must have been divine." Eenan's book settled the question in her mind, and she came forward to receive Christian baptism. But the machinations of our enemy to oppose the pro- gress of the truth in Syria are not peculiar. In India, in China, and on the islands of the sea, wherever the gospel has taken root and the press is used for its diffusion and defence, the infidel press is sure to be used to counteract its influence. The policy is to shut out the press from the heathen as long as possible. And all heathen coun- tries are but too sad illustrations how effectually this has been done. But when in the course of events — in the advancement of civilization, in the progress of light and knowledge, in the increased facihties for communication with civilized and Christian nations, and yet more espe- cially in the spread over the world of a pure Christianity, THE PRESS AND THE EOMISH PEIESTHOOD. 303 the press could no longer be shut out, the policy becomes to SO pervert it as to make it an engine of corruption and mischief. And in this work of " rule or ruin " — prohibiting the press, or perverting and subsidizing it to their own use, the benefit of their own craft, the Papists perhaps pre- sent the most notable example. The press is as really prohibited to the people of Papal countries as it is to those of Pagan lands. It is in either case effectually mo- nopohzed by the few, and that chiefly by the priesthood. Wherever contact with Protestantism, or the progress of civil and religious liberty, has forced on Papists the free- dom of the press, they have not left a stone unturned so to prostitute it as to neutrahze its influence for good, and to make it the abettor and support of error and infi- delity, or at least the channel of a corrupting and hurtful Uterature. And thus the press, which was designed to be, and which is fitted to be, one of the greatest blessings to a people, is made one of the greatest curses. Had we room for statistics here we might exhibit an appalling catalogue of the issues of the Papal press, which are fitted and designed to propagate anything but the pure and unperverted truth of the New Testament. There is indeed in circulation an incredible amount of literature tinctured with a spirit of hostility to revealed religion, and calculated to sow the seeds of doubt and error in the minds of those who, like the old Athenians, " employ themselves in nothing else but either in telling or in hearing some new thing." German Rationalism and Pantheism, with all the brood of idle speculations hatched out in foreign lands; Popery, in many respects worse than infidelity, aiming at empire with character- istic ambition — perhaps hoping to prepare, even here, a home for the sovereign Pontiff — each has its literature and its press, energetic and influential in their respect- 304 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. ive spheres and languages, wanting only the ability to subvert republicanism and overthrow evangelical religion. And as with the press, so with education. In Pagan, or purely Papal countries, " ignorance is the mother of devotion." In our Eepublican Protestant country, where education is popular and cannot be suppressed, the Papists affect a laudable zeal for it. They seize on the most eligible localities for their immense educational establishments, spare no expense in their erection, and leave nothing undone that shall draw into their fascinat- ing toils the unwary youth of Protestant families. And here we might rehearse a sad tale of the press as prostituted to fraud and corruption and subsidized in the service of party rancors and party politics, and as made to cater to the worst passions and habits of man. It is the ever-ready agency by which the gambler, the pimp, the rumseller, advertise their nefarious trades and allure their willing victims. Perhaps in nothing does the prince of darkness more diabolically exult in his wiles and in the works of his hands than in the use he makes of the press in the putrid domains of licentiousness. Licentious literature, which, under cunning disguises, or with fearless effrontery, circulates among us — defying all decency, sapping the morals of all classes, is doing Satan's work with most mischievous energy. But here it is difficult to gather very definite details. That ob- scene books and prints are published, imported, and sold in our cities and through the country, is a fact which we all are familiar with. Whatever their source or their number, it is easy to estimate their evil potency, and, were the truth told, we should learn, I doubfc not, that to the influence of this inflaming agency it is due that so many young men and women fall away into evil courses and make shipwreck of character and hope. The statistics of this great source of sin and suffering, OOEKUPT LITERATURE. 305 could they be collected, would be of most solemn inter- est ; but to him who would attempt the collection I can only reecho the warning voice of a distinguished clergy- man of this city, who, when consulted upon this subject, said to me, " Sir, you had better handle the castaway rags of a small-pox hospital, than meddle with matters connected with the class of writings to which you refer." Bishop Bayley, in a late charge, gave a very timely warning on this important theme. He well says : " If we are bound by every principle of our religion to avoid bad company we are equally bound to avoid bad books — for of all evil, corrupting company, the worst is a bad book. There can be no doubt that the most perni- cious influences at work in the world at this moment, come from bad books and bad newspapers. The yellow- covered literature, as it is called, is a pestilence com- pared with which the yellow fever and cholera and small-pox are as nothing, and yet there is no quarantine against it. Never take a book into your hands which you would not be seen reading. Avoid not only all no- toriously immoral books and papers, but avoid also all those miserable sensational magazines and novels and illustrated papers which are so profusely scattered around on every side. The demand which exists for such garbage speaks badly for the moral sense and in- tellectual training of those who read them. If you wish to keep your mind pure and your soul in the grace of God, you must make it a firm and steady principle of conduct never to touch them." Startling disclosures have been recently made in New York. A gentleman of the city became apprised, of the fact that systematic agencies were at work for the circu- lation of lascivious books and pictures among the youth of both sexes in public and private schools. Pursuing his inquiries he found that the business was large, many 20 306 THE FOOT-PRINTS OP SATAN. men and women engaged in it, and that by employing agents to show the publications to children and youth, a demand for them was created, the secret supply was kept up, and the work of corruption carried on to the profit of the trader and the ruin of the young. He re- sorted to the law. The sale of such books is punish- able by a fine of $1,000 and State prison for one year. Thousands of books and pictures were captured and the guilty parties arrested. " A large portion of these are such as cannot be described in a public paper. The details are wholly unfit for publication or exhibition. But the fact is appalling. We venture to say that no decent person has had the slightest suspicion of the nature and magnitude of the evil now revealed. Fami- liar as we supposed we were with the wiles of the Devil we had no idea of it," And, by means of circulars and agents, the poison is diffused in the country, until there is not a nook or corner of the land which is not perme- ated with the virus of this plague. But perhaps the yet more dangerous prostitution of the press is met in those sly, insidious, characteristically Satanic productions, which under the guise of liberalism sap the foundations of evangelical religion. "As the secret assassin is more to be dreaded than the enemy who openly attacks, so the specious, plausible, sugar- coated infidelity of much of our current literature is re- ally doing more harm than the open attacks of such journals as the "Liberal Christian," which is at least to be respected for its manly vigor and the clearness with which it shows its colors. Let us have pronounced opposition rather than pretended friendliness, masking we scarcely know what."* III. The extent to which the press is used in the publi- * Eev. Edward Gr. Eead, Madisoo, Wisconsin. EOMANCE AND FICTION. 307 cation of romance and fiction and of books which, if they do not corrupt the heart, do little but to dwarf the mind and give perverted and false views of life — of its duties and responsibilities, transcends any means at our command to ascertain. Works of truth, of fact, of prac- tical utility, of moral or religious instruction, are doubt- less far in the minority of the issues of the press. Could we know the gross amount of reading matter which from week to week and month to month finds its way into our families, we should be amazed at the very small proportion which contributes to improve either the mind or the heart, and at the very large proportion which is deci- dedly hurtful. In nothing perhaps is the taste of our people so lamentably demoralized as in respect to our reading matter. The great charm with those esteemed the better classes of society is for fiction and romance, which can do little but amuse. They convey false ideas of real life. The strong proclivities of other classes are for books and publications which are positively demoral- izing. But we shall not essay to canvass this boundless field, or to gather up the noxious growths of its fertile soil. "With a most pestiferous luxuriance the tares have sprung up with the wheat, seeming to overshadow it and to root out the precious grain. We need only say again, "An enemy hath done this." IV. We turn to history — how the Devil has used the press to pervert and falsify history. And here we shall do little more than to refer to the well known if not con- ceded fact, that the Devil has, from the beginning, had much, very much to do in the matter of the world's history. We have alluded to the fact that the Devil has largely monopolized the ofl&ce of writing the world's history. Skeptical men, if not acknowledged infidels, have too 308 THE FOOT-PKINTS OF SATAN. often been our historians. This has given to history a one-sided phase. The merely secular aspect is made to show out. The divine and providential view has been kept in the background. God in history, they left out. But we trace the footsteps of our Foe rather in hie audacious attempts to falsify history whenever it suits his purpose. We have had honest, fearless historians, who have " given the Devil his due." And skeptical historians, too, have left on record many truths, very un- palatable to the god of this world and hard of digestion. Hence the present daring onslaught on history, attempt- ing to blot out those disgusting records of persecutions, tortures, massacres, butcheries more barbarous than ever disgraced the veriest heathen, but which stand written on the faithful page of the history of a hier- archy claiming to be the only Holy CathoUc Apostolic Church. Y. There is yet another mighty element of power which the Devil has perhaps more completely monopo- lized than any other. It is the power of speech — language — TALK. This is more nearly connected with the func- tions of the press than at first may seem. The press is the more formal and permanent expression of thought, fact, feeling, desire. Speech is the more common, uni- versal, influential mode of expressing the same. There is no power like that of talk. Is a good to be advocated or an evil to be deprecated, a truth to be inculcated or an error to be exposed, a right to be defended, or a wrong to be made odious, talk ; talk up the one, talk down the other. Let talk have its perfect work, and the end is accomplished. Make it, if need be, a public talk — em- ploy gossip — engage in the advocacy of your particular theme, young men and maidens, old men and children. Talk of it in the " chief place of concourse, in the open- TALK A MIGHTY POWEE. 309 ings of the gates " — at home and abroad, and the object is accomplished, the desired end gained. Could we control the common talk of men, and make it the expression or advocacy only of the good and the right, we should have but little further trouble to con- vert the world from sin to righteousness. Every man, woman and chUd would at once become a defender and a commender of the truth, which makes free from the bondage and corruption of moral death. "While on the other hand, talk is the mightiest power for evil that sin and Satan ever employed, the tongue, the " httle member," is the " little fire " that kindleth a great matter. It is a fire — a world of iniquity. It de- fileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire of hell. It is an untamable ■ " beast." " The tongue no man can tame." It is an un- ruly evil, full of deadly poison. And it is this unruly member, this untamable, this poisonous evil, which the Devil makes the chief engine of his power, to insinuate, beguile, deceive and beleaguer — to assail truth with argu- ment or eloquence, with sneer or ridicule — by which he advocates falsehood and error, and casts over them the air of truth. Is character to be assailed, slander to be propagated, good influence to be neutralized, good impressions which have been made by truth to be effaced, resolutions to reform to be resisted, temptations to evil to be plied, it needs but a drop from the deadly poison of the tongue and the work is done. An insinuation or innuendo, a doubt expressed, a sneer uttered, a crafty argument used, an appeal made to selfishness, is often quite sufficient to turn the whole current of thought, and to change the whole course of life. As a word fitly spoken may be the starting point of an influence for good, which shall vibrate to all time, yea, be felt to all eternity, so may 310 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. a word insidiously, falsely, perniciously uttered cliange the destiny of a man in this life and in the life to come. Well is it said, " If a man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man." If Satan decoy him not through the tongue — if he escapes its most insidious, perilous temp- tation, it may be hoped he will escape all others. Hence the foiling of Satan's devices in this line is recog- nized by the sacred writers as the highest triumph of Christian virtue and the most overwhelming evidence of loyalty to the divine Master. " For, by thy words thou shall be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be con- demned." So true a test of Christian character is the right use of the tongue that an apostle says, " If any man among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue, this man's religion is vain." YI. We may not here overlook the province of music and the power of song. We may mistake in saying the Devil is more especially than elsewhere in the tongue — that here is the hiding of his power. He may revel yet more voluptuously in music and song. We readily concede the power of song for good — how it soothes the disturbed passions, cheers the desponding spirit, and lifts the soul to heaven — how it brings heaven down to earth, and makes the song of mortals seem to harmonize with the song of angels. As armies meet in mortal combat how often has the inspiration of the na- tional song nerved them for the fight and gained the victory. The Marseillaise, the Star-spangled Banner, God save the Queen, — ^if they have not been more mighty than cannon, they have given power to cannon and done much to secure the triumph. But what a tale may be told when we turn to the 'perversion of song. When our arch Foe puts his slimy fingers to the organ or the harp, or his vile lips counter- THE DETIL IN MUSIC AND SONG. 311 feit the sweet notes of seraphic melodj to captivate the human heart, only the more effectually to lead it captive to his own will, then he seems to enter the inner sanctu- ary of human influence and to send out a latent but mighty power for evil. Irreligious and infidel songs — impure and bawdy ballads — nothing short of the history of the vilest places and the vilest persons, can gauge the dimensions of their power to corrupt. But we fear the Devil is feeling his way and preparing for a descent more stealthy, yet more daring and disas- trous. We seem to see him, with well-feigned grace, essaying to take a position in the sanctuary on the holy day — first in the choir, there in holy mockery to lift up his voice in pretended praise to God. Not content with his unquestioned rule in the theatre, the opera and the place of unrestrained license, he fain would control the choir of the church. Hence, with fair words and gra- cious concessions to the sons and daughters of fashion, pride, position, who are not unwilling to visit the sanctu- ary once on the Sabbath, provided they may be sure to be entertained, if not amused, he brings his music and songs together with his performers and tells them to sing these as the songs of Zion. What else does it mean when we hear of opera singers and opera music in the house of God, and performers, detailed from the shrine of the " Black Crook," called in to guide the holy aspirations of the worshipping assem- bly in their addresses of praise to God ? And what else does it mean that some of om: fasliionaUe churches seem to be rivalling the opera in supplying opera perform- ances gratuitously on Sundays, which in their befitting place must be paid for on a week day ? The young lady unwittingly told the story, when, be- ing invited on Monday to go to the opera, replied, " Oh no ; I went twice yesterday." " Why, you forget," said 312 THE FOOT-PKINTS OF SATAN. the gentleman, " yesterday was Sunday." " Yes, 1 know," slie answered, " but I went to the Holy Opera." When the Church shaU become fully initiated in the idea of introducing and paying at a round price opera singers to please men, instead of lifting up the voice in the sacred song themselves to please God, the author of this innovation and sacrilegious perversion may see the way prepared to advance another step. It may be that fash- ionable hearers — shall I say fashionable church members? — ^may in time fancy that it would be more in accordance with the times and present tastes, to substitute for the present old-fashioned iirayers, uttered in solemn tone as if God were looking on, and as if they were the com- munings of the soul with the Omniscient One, written prayers, got up the better to suit the times, and read by some Dickens, or Fanny Kemble, or Henry Nicholls, who should be called in and paid for the purpose. This would reheve many a hearer from a disagreable tedium, and aid the opera singers in making the church attractive and thus draw in the elite — men and women of fashion, wealth and position — who would pay well and give character to the Church, and soon birds of the same brilliant feather would flock together, and with some other like improve- ments, which would very naturally follow, the Church would then soon become almost as good as the theatre. But what is the remedy? How shall the Enemy here be met? The answer is simple. It is by a return to the good, old-fashioned, scriptural custom of congrega- tional singing — to the practice of the Apostolic Church — to the practice of the Christian Church for the first three centuries, and the usage of the Hebrew Church. Sacred song is the highest form of divine service. Prayer is con- fession and petition — employing God's favor. Preaching is the presentation, illustration and enforcement of Di- vdne Truth. Sacred song is the lifting up of the soul, THE DEVIL IN MUSIC AND SONG. 313 throTigli the voice, to God in thanksgiving and praise. It is heavenly. They that " stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God, sing the song of Moses and the Lamb." But on whom does the duty or rather the privilege of song here devolve? Certainly on the whole worship- ping assembly — upon every individual worshipper. " Let all the people praise thee O God ; yea, let all the people praise thee." So did the early Christians. When " filled with the spirit, they spake to themselves in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in their hearts to the Lord." "How is it, brethren, when ye come together every one of you hath a psalm ?" And so it was until the Church lapsed into a conformi- ty to the world, departing from her primitive simplicity, and becoming assimilated to the tastes and usages of worldly men. Then, in Hke manner as the people of false religions serve their god by proxy through the priest, so, in the decadence of a live Christianity, do the people yield to a hired quartette the service of sacred song. xiy. SATAN EST FALSE RELIGIONS. THE OEIGIN, HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OP FALSE EELI- GIONS — THEIE RELATION TO THE ONE TRUE RELIGION — THE REVELATION FROM HEAVEN. The autlior not long since prepared a treatise on the ori- gin, history, and philosophy of false religions, but especial- ly on their historic relations to the one Divine religion, the revelation from heaven. It was designed for a se- parate volume, but as it will serve as an extended illus- tration of our present theme we subsidize it to our purpose here. Every people will have a religion. And whatever that rehgion may be, it is sure to have a con- trolling influence. Give the Devil this control and he asks no more. This means the control of mind, money, social influence and governmental power — a control of the whole man. If a pure, true religion be the richest inheritance a mortal can be heir to, a false, corrupt reli- gion is the veriest curse, and consequently the stronghold of the adversary. On nothing is he so intently fixed as to corrupt and divest of all spiritual strength the true re- ligion, and to nurture and give power to a false religion. In his perversion of wealth, learning, fashion, habit, lie monopohzes in each a mighty power for evil, and THE POWER OF EELIGION. 315 hinders an immense amount of good. But in the perver- sion of religion the monopoly is wholesale. For in this monopoly not only are wealth, learning, pohtical power, fashion and habit thrown into the arms of the world's god and adversary, but the yet mightier elements of priestly influence, man's reHgious instincts, and a preten- ded Divine sanction are made to play a yet more fearful part in the great drama of sin and ruin which the Arch Foe is acting in our world. Eeligion is confessedly one of the mightiest elements of power that works among men. All religions have theb martyrs. No sacrifices have been too expensive, no sufferings, no inflictions too severe that men will not endure for their religion's sake. They will make pilgrim- ages, they will afflict their bodies, and pour out their treasures, if you can but persuade them that these are effective religious acts, that will advance their eternal interests. Man's religious instinct is, the world over, ex- ceedingly strong and controlling. Well knowing this, our subtle Foe has left no device untried that he might monopolize and turn to his own account this aU pervad- ing element of power. And in nothing has he shown more adroitness, or secured a more universal control over the human mind. The brief survey we shall be able to take of false rehgions will but too obviously indicate how successfully he has turned the religious instincts of men to his own account. A favorite and very successful scheme of the Devil is, first to falsify religion and then to make the falsified religion exclusive. He thus holds the keys of heaven, and would shut out all who will not conform to his dictation. Exclusiveness — intolerance is a very sure sign of a spurious religion. In the survey we propose to take of false religions in order to detect in them the footsteps of the Foe, we shall 316 THE POOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. consider their origin and history — their pliilosopliy and general character — their practical tendencies, results and influence on the social and domestic condition, on litera- ture, ciyihzation, government, and human character in general. We shall have occasion to canvass the practi- cal bearings of religious intolerance, and the powers for evil which have been exercised by religious fraternities or great rehgious orders. The great prevaihng systems of false religions, as Komanism, Islamism, and various systems of idolatry, will come under review. The ORIGIN and history of false religions will suffice for the present chapter. Nor shall we, from the nature of the subject, be able to do more than to generahze where we have but uncertain historical records. It has ever been the pohcy of Satan to forestall the purposes of God and to set up a counterfeit of what the Lord hath declared he will do. There is perhaps no such thing as an absolutely and originally false reli- gion. What we call false religions, and what have practically error and falsehood enough in them to make them almost altogether bad, are really but the counterfeits of a true religion. God probably inaugurates no system which Satan does not mimic. What he cannot counteract and destroy, he will counterfeit. We shaU assume at the outset that the true idea of religion is a matter of Divine revelation. That man should love, serve and honor his God was in the begin- ning a lesson taught by God himself. This does not, however, preclude the idea that nature uttered a voice responsive to man's innate rehgious instinct, and urged home upon him the same lessons of duty and reverence. " The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firma- ment showeth forth the works of his hands." The suc- cession of day and night proclaim the goodness of God. GOD SPEAKING IN NATUEE. 317 " Til ere is no speech, nor language where their voice is not heard." Divided as the inhabitants of the earth originally were according to speech, the import of the passage is that there is no, nation, or people, or tribe where nature's volume is not open, and all who will, may there trace the footsteps of a God. God has stamped his image on all his works. Every created thing shadows forth an all pervading Deity. "In nature's open volume they did read Truths of the mightiest import, and in awe Bow down in humble heart, an unseen power adore." Though sin has effaced this image — has done what it could to blot out every vestige of a Deity from the earth, yet the idea of one presiding and supreme Divinity is deeply engraven on the very frontlets of nature's works. The evidence may be obscured, and a knowledge of Him be perverted, but man, though without the written revelation, will be forever inexcusable if he do not discern and revere this God. Were conscience al- lowed her supremacy, and reason not contravened, there could be no such thing as a denial of God. But God has not left man to grope his way by this lesser light. He has given him the clearer light of reve- lation. And this has been a light increasing in its brilliancy, through every dispensation of grace, from the first announcement of the promise to Adam to the full effulgence of the heavenly hght as it shines from the up- lifted cross, and so onward till it shall appear in the mil- lennial glory and be consummated in the perfect light of the new Jerusalem. In order that we may trace the progress and the better estimate the mischief which the Enemy hath done, through his counterfeits or perversions of reHgion, known as false religions, we shall need to take a brief view at 318 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. least of tlie different phases or dispensations in whicli the true religion has appeared and advanced in our world. It will serve our present purpose to consider it under the three general aspects : the Patriarchal, the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, and the Christian. As these are but succes- sive steps of advancement from a less to a more perfect condition, God revealing himself more and more, and at each step bringing life and immortality more clearly to light, so the Enemy adjusts his mahgnant schemes for counteracting the successful execution of the benevolent purposes of Heaven. In nothing has the hand of the Adversary appeared more conspicuous than in his master- ly counterworkings to thwart, if possible, the purposes and workings of Heaven. In respect to the origin of all false religions we are con- cerned chiefly with the times of the Patriarchal and Abrahamic dispensations. While in the subsequent modifications of these same systems we shall have oc- casion often to refer to the Mosaic and the Christian dispensations. With the gradations of these systems from a less to a more perfect state we shaU see how, in his counterplotting and counterworking, the Devil had occasion to modify, change, add to or take from an old system so as to fit it to a change of the times. A system of idolatry that would be effective to his purpose in a dark, gross age of the world, would be offensive and altogether inoperative in a different age. Hence his change of strategy and tactics to suit the times and the conditions of the world. In the brief survey we shall have occasion to take of the Patriarchal rehgion and of corresponding false reli- gions, we need not go back beyond the Deluge. Yet no doubt if we had the data we should find a no less strik- ing illustration of our subject in those earlier centuries. The general corruption that then prevailed (for God GOD SPEAKING IN NATUEE. 319 declares that all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth) — the universal degeneracy which so soon covered the earth, of course involved a most melancholy perver- sion of the true rehgion, and of consequence corresponding inventions of false rehgions. God had revealed himself to Adam and the true worship had been estabhshed, and a knowledge of salvation through a Mediator was made known and for a long time preserved. This religion was some centuries after Adam revived in the days of Enos, and still centuries later it stands on record that Enoch walked with God, and was not, for God took him. How the great Enemy of man and of God was allowed to plunge the early generations of men into sin and guilt — to instigate them to swerve from the true faith, and to change the truth of God, whom they knew, into a lie and to worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, we do not, in its, details know. The general corruption that prevailed is but the too sure voucher that he did so. Such a state of degeneracy could scarcely have been, ex- cept as a result of a grievous perversion of all true rehgion and as the legitimate point of a false system. But we have no need to go beyond the Flood. The religion of Noah was the true Patriarchal religion. It was the same as Adam and Seth and Enos and Enoch had professed and practiced, and the same which after- wards warmed the hearts and guided the lives of Abraham and David and Isaiah. It was the acknowledgment of the one only Hving and true God, the supreme governor and creator of all things, and of one mediator between God and man. We meet with the Church here in its merest pupilage, from which, through different dispensations, it goes up from one school to another — in the Mosaic, under the ministration of angels — till it reaches the Christian dispensation, when it is under the dispensation of the Son. As some one has said, " the whole of the 320 THE FOOT-PBINTS OF SATAN. Old Testament may be taken as one great and compre- hensive system of outlines — and the New, as one perpe- tual system of admirable correspondences in the form of finished pictures." We may then expect to find in the religion of the Patriarchs only the rudest outlines of that great and glorious system of revelation and rehgion which is found matured in Christianity, and perfected in the final and universal reign of Christ upon the earth. Let us then direct our inquiries for a few moments to the question. What was the religion of the Patriarchs ? This inquiry is the more pertinent to our present subject, in as much as it is generally believed that no period was more likely to have been the period of the general apos- tasy which occurred some time in the Patriarchal age than the period just preceding the call of Abraham. And consequently it follows that the ancient systems of idolatry which sprung up, corrupt and corrupting, were the offspring-r-rather the perversions of that first, rude form of the true religion which was transmitted through Noah to his posterity. For a knowledge of the religion of the generations that lived during the first 2,000 years of the world we may have recourse to the book of Job as the only docu- ment extant to which we may with confidence refer. From this source we learn that the leading features of the religion of these ancient saints were that God is one, supreme, all wise and glorious, the creator and ruler of all things ; that the universe and all things that appear therein were not the works of chance, but were created by this one God- — that He is a moral governor, dispens- ing rewards and punishments according to his character. The existence of angels and superior orders of intelligen- ces was recognized, and the doctrine of evil spirits was received and the existence of an arch-fiend called Satan, JOB AS A EEUGIOUS EXPONENT. 321 who was allowed great control in tlie affairs of men. Again, the ancients fully admitted the fact of man's fall and apostasy from all moral purity, and his propenseness to all evil, and equally did they concede the necessity of a scheme of reconciliation with God through a substitute. The penitent they beheved would find favor. But on the subject of the future life, if we take Job (as I suppose we may) as a fair exponent of behef of the Patriarchal age, of the immortality of the soul and a state of rewards and punishments after death, we shall find but little light. Their notions here were exceedingly vague and confused. " If a man die, shall he Kve again ?" " Man dieth and wasteth away, yea he giveth up the ghost, and where is he ?" The future was to them " The land of darkness and the shadow of death — The land of darkness, Hke the blackness of the shadow of death. Where there is no order, and where its shining is like blackness." Another prominent feature in this ancient religion was that God 'should be worshipped through sacrifices and burnt offerings. And what is exceedingly interesting, and seems happily in advance of the general character of their religion, these ancients set a high value on the fruits of personal piety. The necessity of holiness of Hfe, trust in God, truth, integrity, charity, hospitahty, since- rity were everywhere commended and insisted on. Here I might introduce a very singular and interesting character as an illustration of the religion of these very times. I refer to Melchizedec, King of Salem, king of peace, priest of the Most High God, to whom Abraham paid tithes. He was probably a Canaanitish prince of the olden, the longer-lived generation, who maintained the knowledge and worship of God, which did not seem up to this time so generally lost in Canaan as in the land 21 522 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. from whicli Abraham came. Here we are able to trace a connecting link between tlie religion of Abraham and that of Noah and Enoch, i. e., to trace the true rehgion through that dark period which intervened between the primitive religion of the world and the reformation under Abraham — through the " dark ages " of the old world. We have, as seen in this brief compendium of the an- cient faith, not only the outlines of the revealed rehgion, both in its present expanded, and yet expanding condi- tion, but we have before us the system of faith and prac- tice, which, by the perversion of sin and the devices of Satan, gave rise to all the corrupt schemes of idolatry which cursed the ancient world, and which, with 'modi- fications to suit the times, have cursed the world to the present day. The device of the Devil has been not to suppress or in any way to discourage man's religious instinct, but rather to cherish it. He would have aU men very religious, and fain would he have them fancy they are practicing the religion prescribed by God, while at the same time, by a wicked perversion, he would make religion the sorriest counterfeit of what God requires. The leading false reUgions which have from time im- memorial held the greater portion of the inhabitants of the earth in social and civil, as well as in moral and spiritual bondage, are Sabianism, Magianism, Brahmin- ism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism and the Papacy. It will not be necessary that we attempt to trace in order each one of these impure streams up to the particular fountain of which it is the corrupt issue. It is enough that we mark the perversion and duly note the stupen- dous mischief which the great Adversary of man and God has perpetrated by the wholesale monopoly of reh- gion to his vile purposes. In all his monopolies of wealth, learning, influence, custom, habit, fashion, amuse- ments, he only entered the outer courts of humanity, THE EELIGION OF THE ASSYEIANS. 323 controUing man's happiness and destiny througli his secular interests, resources and prerogatives. But liere he intrudes into the inner sanctuary of his soul, and con- fronts him in his most sacred interests with his God. As man, in his consecrated moments, draws near his heavenly Father and asks bread, the hand of the Foe gives him a stone. If he ask a fish, he gives him a ser- pent, and a scorpion for an egg. One of the most ancient forms of idolatry of which we know, was Sabianism. This was the religion of the Assy- rians, from which Abraham separated himseK when he came out from Ur of the Chaldees. In a remote period of antiquity this rehgion was " diffused over Asia by the science of the Chaldeans and the arms of the Assyrians." From Asia it passed into Egypt, and from thence to the Grecians, " who propagated it to all the western nations of the world." We can form no estimate of the millions, the hundreds of milhons of the human race who for many and long centuries have been held in the bondage of corruption by this system of religion. Practically, it was a moral miasma, breathing spiritual pestilence and death over all those vast regions of the East. It was the parent of despotism, rehgious and civil. It was the cancer-worm that blighted the social and domestic rela- tions over which it extended, and polluted the whole foun- tain of the human heart. Its superstitions and mummer- ies, and burdensome exactions and debasing influences through all the varied avenues of life, made it a huge agency — an all-pervading and influential agency by which to control the vast multitudes over which it exer- cised dominion. He that can control the religious instincts of a people — direct their rites, superstitions, worship and belief, wants very little of a supreme control over such a people. When man's arch Foe then becomes the high priest at 324 THE FOOT-PKINTS OF SATAN. the altar, he finds himself at the helm of humau affairs, and he may guide them as he will. From no other point may he exercise so supreme a control. In order the more effectively to secure such a control, our Enemy's policy is to make a false religion, not only as nearly like the true religion as possible, but he is careful to have it founded on the same great original truths. Hence we find the rehgion of Babel — of Babylon — of the great Baby- lonish Empire — founded on the great truths of revelation. Sabius, after whom the system is supposed to be named, was the son of Seth. They were wont to appeal for authority to the sacred books of Adam, Seth and Enoch. The truth doubtless is, the compilers of that ancient religious code had before them the great truths of reve- lation, as they had been made known to Adam, Seth, Enoch, and the holy men who lived before the Flood, and transmitted through Noah to succeeding generations. The acknowledgment of the one supreme God, Creator of the heavens and the earth, the Preserver, the Benefactor and the Controller of all things ; the concession that man is a sinner, and can never, without the interposition of another, restore himself to the favor of an offended God, were, theoretically, items of belief. Hence the prayers, the worship and the offerings which they made to God. Yet while they were matters of creed, not one of these truths was left unperverted, and hence they became null and void. So effectually perverted were they for all practical purposes, as to become the sheerest falsehoods. Though they knew God, they worshipped him not as God, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise — for they had all the boasted wisdom of the Chaldeans to guide them — they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image. THE OEIGIN OF IMAGE WOESHIP. 326 The wliole is expressed in a word, " they changed the truth of God into a lie." First they worshipped the heavenly bodies, the sun, moon, and stars, as the most obvious representatives of the one supreme God, and as the supposed tabernacles of the divine intelligence. But as these heavenly bodies, by their rising and setting, were haK the time removed from their sight, they had recourse to images which they might worship in the absence of the planets, and to these images they gave the names of the planets which they represented. This being, as is supposed, the origin of image-worship, as the adoration of the heavenly bodies was the origin of all the idolatry that has prevailed in the world, we should expect to meet, as we actually do meet, in all ancient mythologies and in aU modem systems of Paganism, such deities as Saturn, Jupiter, ApoUo, Mercury, Yenus and Diana. And as this primi- tive system of idolatry extended itseK from its centre in the Chaldean Empire, " diffused over Asia by the science of the Chaldeans and the arms of the Assyri- ans," passing into Egypt and thence into Greece, may we not receive this system as constituting substan- tially the national rehgions of Greece and Eome ? We aUow for modifications and changes which the progress of civilization, philosophy and revelation had m the mean time produced. An important modification of which was the introduction of hero-worship, or the deification and worship of departed men who had greatly dis- tinguished themselves in life. The singular agreement which this system has with the rehgion of the Jews, either with that revealed to Abra- ham, or that more advanced system committed to Moses, (though Sabianism may be earlier in existence than either,) is accounted for from the fact that both are derived from the same general source. All they had in 326 THE FOOT-PEINTS Oi" SATAN". common was a matter of divine revelation. It liad been revealed to the Patriarchs. And what would seem to vin- dicate their lineage from the true religion as revealed to the earlier Patriarchs and renewed and enlarged in the Abrahamic dispensation, is the fact alluded to by Gibbon, that a " sHght infusion of the gospel transformed the last remnant of these polytheists into the Christians of St. John." Even Christianity in its best estate is but a return to, and a new, and a vastly enlarged and perfected edition of the rehgion vouchsafed to the Patriarchs. But in taking the above view of the origin of this first great system of idolatry — for the religion of the ancient Babylonians deserves no other name — ^we would not be understood as holding that the heaven-inspired religion of Noah and Abraham is responsible for this and all the false rehgions that have since cursed th e world. " An enemy hath done this." Did not the great husbandman sow good seed in his field ? Whence then the tares ? A pure rehgion is the grand agency by which God controls the mind of man. The Enemy here steps in, and by a gross perversion of this same rehgion makes it the mightiest agency by which to corrupt and hold in spirit- ual bondage the willing dupes of error. Gladly would we know more of this ancient religion — how men in those remote ages of antiquity, who, like the men in every succeeding generation, loved not to retain God in their thoughts, gradually swerved from the sim- plicity of the truth, perverting one truth after another, till they changed the truth of God into a lie. Countless millions were for ages its ignorant votaries. " Professing themselves to be wise," in this most essential concern " became fools." In its sad perversion, what was once a true religion became but a corrupt and a corrupting superstition, and in practice but the sheerest idolatry. But for its error we might admire its antiquity. It was THE MOTHEE OF IDOLATET. 327 tlie oldest of a series of false religions which have held in mental and social, as well as in civil and religious bondage, the greater part of the human race, from that remote antiquity to the present moment. It was the rehgion of ancient Nineveh — ^the religion of great Babylon. Its shrines were enriched by the wealth of the kings of Assyria, and itsiemples were the resort of the ancient sages and philosophers of that first great empire. Fancy can scarcely retrace the steps of time back to the period when those temples teemed not with willing worshippers, and those altars smoked not with victims. While Home was yet in her infancy and Greece was not known, the glory of Nineveh and Baby- lon had departed. Before Abraham left the plains of Mamre, or Jonah had preached repentance in the great and wicked city, before Israel had a king or Jerusalem a temple, this great superstition held its empire over the teeming millions of the great East. And the records of aU time can never teU the amount of ignorance and corrup- tion, of fraud and despotism, of cruelty and degradation which the great Enemy of man was able to inflict on our race through this one system of false religion. No form of false religion has ever held in bondage so many millions of immortal beings. None ever spread desola- tion and spiritual death over regions so extensive or for so long a period of time. For we must bear in mind that this Sabianism is the mother of idolatry — the original of a system of idol worship which, as remodelled from time to time, and always moulded to suit the times, is that great spiritual agency for evil by which the Devil has never failed to exercise an aU controlling-power over the human mind ever since the apostasy. An early modification of this original system appears in the next great system of idolatry, known as Magianism. This we may regard as a reformation of Sabianism, and 328 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. perhaps bore the same relation to the Abrahamic dispen- sation that Sabianism did to the Patriarchal. It was a specious advance in error to correspond with the advance of truth — the second grand device of Satan to deceive the nations — to monopolize the religious sentiment — to control men through their religious instincts. "When they ask an egg again he gives them a scorpion. Magianism is remarkable among false rehgions for the amount of truth it embodied. It was a close approxi- mation to the rehgion of the Jews. This, however is especially true only as we find it reformed by the cele- brated Zoroaster. Indeed this famous priest and philo- sopher and reformer is believed to have been a Jew. He is said to have been, in early life, in the service of one of the prophets (Daniel as is generally supposed) where he became thoroughly conversant with the Jewish Scriptures, and acquainted with the faith and worship, the liturgy and ceremonial of that people. Hence the large accessions received from that source. But let us see first what we can find of the original system as it existed from Abraham to Moses, and thence onward to its reformation near the close of the captivity of Israel in Babylon. We have scant material for such researches — little but the few allusions in the Old Testa- ment— a few glimpses of light amidst the darkness of the tombs, yet enough to warrant the belief that this form of false rehgion was the exact counterfeit of the religion of the long period indicated. The progress of revelation and of civilization had cast so much light over the nations of Western Asia, where flourished the first great empires and over which had prevailed the first great system of idolatry, that this ancient idolatry had become too gross longer to hold the mind of the people in bondage. And hence the modification which was now invented. It must have be the counterfeit, not, as before, of Job and MAGIANISM AND Z0K0A8TEE. 32^ the older Patriarchs, but of Abraham and his descend- ants. The call of Abraham and the covenant made with that Patriarch, and the new revelations of the divine character now made, placed the true rehgion on a higher level than ever before, and presented the character of God in a light never before known. The unity and spiritual- ity of God were now especially vindicated in opposition to the polytheism and materiality of God which had characterized the religions of preceding ages. Conse- quently we find the new vamped form of idolatry acknowledging one supreme God, eternal, self existent, the creator and governor of all things. And they admitted the resurrection of the body, a future judgment, and future rewards and punishment. And they held in , great abhorrence the worship of images. The doctrine of the fall of man and the apostasy of angels, and the scripture origin of sin, they, at least in theory, admitted. Yet though they knew God, they worshipped him not as God, and were, in the practical bearings of their religion, scarcely less vain in their imaginations than the idola- trous nations whose religion they professed to reform. They worshipped not God as a spirit, nor as a pure and holy being, but paid divine honors to fire, the light, and the sun, fancying, as they did, that these were the best representatives of the deity and hence the most suitable objects of worship. This was the rehgion of the ancient Medes and Persians, which prevailed for centuries among the people of those extensive regions, and which still exists under the name of Fire Woeship, among a res- pectable remnant in Persia and India to this day.* * A fragment of the Zoroastrian oracles declares of God that " he the first is indestructible, eternal, unbegotten, indivisible, dissimilar ; the dispenser of all good, incorruptible, the best of the good, the wisest of the wise ; he is the father of equity and justice, self-taught, physical, and perfect, and wise, and the only inventor of the sacred philosophy. 330 THE FOOT-PRINTS OP SATAN. The great cliaracteristic of this religion was tiie cele- brated " two principles," for a belief of which the fire- worshippers are so well known. They believed that from eternity there existed two beings, Ormuzd and Ahriman, which they denominated principles of the universe. Or- muzd is pure, eternal hght, the original source of all per- fection. Ahriman, too, they say, was originally of the light, but because he envied the light of Ormuzd, he ob- scured his own, became the enemy of Ormuzd and the father of evil, and of aU wicked beings who are confede- rate with him in a constant warfare with the good. To Ormuzd they attributed the creation of all good beings, and to Ahriman the creation of evil beings. The one class are the servants of the wicked god, and the other of the good god. One is the author of all evil, the other of all good. The good dwell with Ormuzd in light, the other with Ahriman in darkness. And so after death the good go to dwell forever in a world of light with Ormuzd, and the wicked are consigned over to Ahriman to dwell forever with him in a world of darkness. Who does not hero discern the true idea of God and the Devil ? The pride and envy of the evil god and the perpetual warfare kept up between the two, and the fi.nal victory which they believed the good should achieve over the evil, leave no doubt whence they derived their idea of the two prin- ciples which held so prominent a place in their religion. But there seems to have been at least a sect among them, even before the reformation by the great Zoroaster, who came yet nearer to the truth. They held that the good God only was eternal, and that the other was creat- ed. But they, however, agree that there will be a con- tinual conflict between the two till the end of the world, when the good god shall overcome the evil god, and henceforth each shall have his own appropriate world ; the good god his world of light, with all good men and ANCIENT FIEE-WOESHIP. 331 good beings of whatever grade ; and the evil god have his world of darkness, with all wicked beings. And light being the truest symbol of good, and darkness of evil, they worshipped the good god through the fire as being the cause of Hght, and especially did they worship the sun as being in their opinion tho most perfect and caus- ing the most perfect light. And the evil god they always associated with darkness as the j&ttest emblem of wickedness. The Magians erected neither statues, nor temples nor altars to their gods, but offered their sacrifices and paid their adorations in the open air, and generally on the tops of hills or in high places. Turning their faces to the East they worshipped the rising sun. An undoubted reference is made to this ancient worship, this species of idolatry, in Ezek. viii. 16., Among the " abominations " shown to the Prophet which the children of Israel com- mitted in the holy temple, was the one to which we refer : " He brought me to the inner court of the Lord's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces towards the East, and they worshipped the sun toward the East." That is, they had turned their backs on the true worship of God and had gone over to that of the Magians, the religion of the people about them. The holy of holies, in which was the Shekinah of the divine presence, being on the west end of the temple, all that came to worship God, turned their faces to the west or toward the holy place. These twenty-five men, by turning their faces towards the rising sun turned their backs upon the altar of God, showing they worshipped, not the God of Israel, but the God of the Magians. And not unHkely the "horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun," but which Josiah, 332 THE FOOT-PKINTS OF SATAN. when lie cleaned the temple of abominations, took away, and the " chariots of the sun which he burnt with fire," belonged to the same species of worship. And possibly another feature of the same idolatrous worship was al- luded to when the Prophet saw again what the " ancients of the house of Israel did in the dark." He saw seventy men standing in a secluded part of the temple, every man holding in his hand a censer, and a thick cloud of incense went up. From the investigations of Hammer, who is good au- thority on a subject of this kind, it would appear that Magianism, or the pure fire-worship; was even prior to Sabianism, which we have supposed to be the earliest perversion of rehgion or form of idolatry. He speaks of the " pure fire-worship as the oldest religion of the Bactro-Medean race," and that from this the worship of the heavenly bodies, or Sabianism, sprung. On this sup- position Sabianism was the corruption of the ancient and the less degenerate form of idolatry, and the Magian- ism of the Medes and Persians of a later date was a re- form in relation to Sabianism, though but a return to the primitive form and doctrines of ancient Magianism. The period we have assigned to this form of idolatry is a long one. Through this period we may trace a very signal advance of the true religion. It extended from Abraham to* Moses and onward through the reforms in the days of Samuel and David, Josiah and Hezekiah, em- bracing the glowing visions of Messiah's coming reign which Isaiah saw, and yet onward to the no less evangeli- cal teachings of Daniel and Malachi. During this period of more then .fifteen hundred years, religion had ad- vanced from the confused and fragmentary state in which Abraham found it into the organized and advanced con- dition into which Moses brought it, and into the yet more perfect state in which David and Daniel left it. ANOTHEE COUNTEKFEIT. 333 The rude tabernacle liad grown into the glorious temple. The few detached and traditionary truths of the Patri- archs had given place to the historical books, to the psalms of David, to the teachings and predictions of the Prophets — indeed to the entire Old Testament. A Church had been organized with a code of laws, public worship had been instituted, and a regular priesthood had been appointed. At the close of this period religion was, as compared with the scanty growth and development at the beginning of the period, hke a " woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." If our theory be true we are now again to look for a new counterfeit which shall be so far an advance on the last of the Enemy's devices that it shall correspond with the progress niade in the true religion. This correspond- ing advance in the counterfeit became needful not only on account of the clearer views and the more evangehcal teachings of Isaiah, Daniel and the later Prophets, but on account of the impressive lesson which had been taugh?t the professed Israel of God by the captivity in Babylon. That calamity, by means not altogether obvious, was an effectual cure of Israel's great moral disease, his inve- terate proneness to idolatry. Even in the wilderness, so soon after those wonderful manifestations of God in their deliverance, Aaron set up the golden calf, the Apis of the Egyptians, and the people worshipped it. And through aU their subsequent history they were prone to go after the gods of the heathen. But the captivity wrought an effectual cure. Henceforth an idol in Israel was nothing. Such a thorough conviction of the sin of idolatry, and so prompt and decided an abstinence from it on the part of Israel, imperatively demanded a corresponding change in the antagonistic system. If reform be the order of the day in the Church, Satan is sure to turn reformer. 334 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. Hence the change which now came over the spurit, or rather over the form of the prevailing system of idolatry. And hence the reformatory measures of the great Zoroaster. He was to Magianism what Moses was to the true rehgion. The reformation now called for was to meet the marked advance of rehgion as now illustrated in Judaism, inaugurated by Moses, and matured by a long succession of holy men and Prophets down to the capti- vity. Magianism, as reformed by Zoroaster, met this demand and furnished another striking example how errorists are " ever learning, but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth." The wisdom of the world in its best type, philosophy in its profoundest researches, does but approxi- mate— does but feel after the truth, as revealed in Christ. It may aim at, but can never reach the ma^rk or secure the piize. Magianism, as reformed by Zoroaster, is perhaps the nearest approximation ever made by any false reli- gion to the truth. Yet it is no nearer to the truth than a close counterfeit is to a genuine coin. A brief examination of this specious counterfeit, in its reformed costume, will justify such an opinion. The celebrated Zoroaster, as I have said, is beheved to have been contemporary with Daniel during his sojourn in Babylon, and conversant with the Prophets and reli- gious teachers of that period. And it is asserted that he was for some years nearly associated with one of the Prophets — probably Daniel. Hence he had ample op- portunities to become acquainted with the Jewish scrip- tures and the Jewish religion. And here no doubt he conceived the idea of remodelhng the rehgion of the Persians so as to adapt it the better to the increased light which the revelation had shed on the world through the people who worshipped the God of Zion. Indeed, he drew so largely on the sacred scriptures, and conformed DANIEL AND HIS TIMES. 335 his system so nearly to Judaism, that the engrossed ele- ments of trnth sometimes seem to predominate over the original elements of the old system which he pretended to reform. The chief and most important reformation which he made was in respect to its first principle, that God is one and supreme and eternal, self-existent and independent, who created both light and darkness, out of which he made aU other things ; that these are in a state of con- flict which will continue to the end of the world, that then there shall be a resurrection and a general judgment, and that just retribution shall be rendered unto men according to their works, the angel of darkness with his followers shall be consigned to a place of everlasting darkness and punishment, and the angel of light, with his disciples, introduced into a state of everlasting light and happiness, after which light and darkness shaU no more interfere with each other. The remodelling and reforming the then existing system of idolatry under Zoroaster, was a policy urged upon our great adversary by the remarkable events of the time. Zoroaster is beheved to have lived in the eventful times of Daniel, and to have known of his holy living, and singular wisdom and convincing testimony to the truth, of Nebuchadnezzar and his visions and dreams, and the interpretations thereof, of Daniel's three friends and the overwhelming conviction the fiery trial of their faith must have produced, and of Cyrus and the conspicuous part he acted in the great passing drama as the chosen instrument in the hands of the great King. The shghtest allusion to the events of those times would seem enough to produce the profoundest convic- tion that the hand of God — yea the spirit of God — was at work mightily among the hundred and twenty-seven pro- vinces of Babylon, as also in Medea and Persia, and in 336 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. all the principal nations of Asia. The design of the ex- traordinary providential movements, God informs us, was twofold. 1st, the deliverance of Israel, and 2d, the making known his supreme power and Godhead among all the nations of the earth : " For the sake of Jacob my servant, and Israel mine elect. And that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me." Of the widespread and profound impressions produced on those people and nations we may receive as a satis- factory index the pubhc confessions and declarations of the proud and idolatrous Nebuchadnezzar and of King Darius, " Of a truth it is that your God is the God of gods and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets." And King Darius wrote unto all people, nations and languages that in every dominion of my kingdom, " men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel, for he is the living God and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." It was under the pressure of such a state of things that he who now saw his craft in serious danger set him- self to remodel and reform the prevailing system of idolatry and suit it to the times. Hence Zoroaster and the Zendavesta. Never perhaps did man's Arch Enemy make larger concessions to the true and the right and draw more liberally from the great fountain of all truth. Such homage was he constrained to pay to the onward march of truth and righteousness. XV. FALSE EELIGIONS.— (Continued.) HISTOEIC RELIGION — ^PEOGEESSIVE REVELATION — GOD RE- VEALS HIMSELF AS THE WORLD CAN BEAR IT — ^TRACES 05 THE TEUE RELIGION IN ALL FALSE SYSTEMS — OSIRIS — CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION FOR MAN— UNRESTRICTED. There is much of interest in the origin, the history and philosophy of False Eehgions. Constituting as they do the most subtle combination of all the engines of mis- chief which the great adversary wields, there is much in them, when contemplated as perversions and counterfeits of the true, both to admire and lament. We meet in them not so much absolute falsehood, as truth perverted and counterfeited to the peril of man's interests in this Hfe, and his eternal undoing in the life to come. , False ReHgions have, as we have shown, a common or- igin ; and they have more in common than is generally supposed. Based on ^aci^icaZ atheism, it is not easy to determine which recognizes the least of God. Neither Paganism, Popery, or Mohammedanism questions the ab- stract being of God. Such a monstrosity falls only within 22 338 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN the dark domains of Atheism. Beason and conscience never said " there is no God." This is the language only of the perverted heart. God has stamped his image on all his works. The heavens declare the being and agency of God. The succession of day and night proclaims it — everything shadows forth an all-pervading deity. False religions have formed a crafty compromise be- tween the conflicting elements of man. They yielfl to Reason who knows there is a God, and to Conscience who feds it, the abstract fact of the divine existence, but grant to the lieart, which has no complacency in the character of the God of reason and conscience, the prerogative of clothing this being with attributes congenial with its own corrupt nature. Hence the invention of other gods and the imputing to the true God a fictitious character. And hence the fabrication of corresponding systems of religion. Yet, in the compromise, the heart, de facto, has the advantage. For while it theoretically acknow- ledges the being of one supreme God by adding at the same time a multitude of lesser deities to which it pays its supreme homage, it practically loses sight of both the being and authority of the true God. Here is the dark triumph of sin. It has placed a black and .impenetrable cloud between the effulgence of the eternal throne and this lower world. It has covered the earth with darkness — done its utmost to shut out God from the world, and to usurp his dominion over this part of his empire. It has changed the incorruptible God into an image made hke to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. In order to take a just view of the great systems of false rehgions which have obtained in the world it wiU be necessary to premise the following things : I. God reveals himself to the world as the world can c tg 7 .^ GRADUAL REVELATION. 339 hear it or is prepared to receive it. And we must of con- sequence look for something corresponding to this in the ■various systems of religion which have prevailed in different ages of the world and in different countries. And we may add that the same revelation becomes a source of more or less light according to the condition of the people it enlightens. In a given amount of sunshine the haK blind man sees but little compared with the man of clear and open vision ; and they who are enveloped in fog, little compared with them who bask in the noonday sun. Every new acquisition of knowledge, every well directed mental improvement, every advancement in society, casts new light upon — or rather educes new light from the sacred page. And so we may say of the culti- vation of every Christian virtue and the cherishing of every right affection. The same truth as contemplated from different points, for different purposes, with different feelings and affections, with a clearer vision and at a greater or less distance, appears in new beauties and relations, and assumes new importance. It will, therefore, correct our views and moderate our censures when contemplating what are denominated false religions, if we take good heed, as we pass to our chronology, to our geography, physical, political and moral, and to the entire condition of the people as to knowledge, mental improvement and civilization. A re- ligion which is essentially false in one age or condition of the world, might have been essentially true in an- other age or condition. For an illustration of this we need go no further back than Judaism. II. Another point to be borne in mind is the mental and moral improvement of our race. The condition of the human race is progressive. Partial and local retro- gressions have at times, and for considerable portions of time, occurred ; yet these should be regarded rather as 340 THE FOOT-PEINTS OP SATAN. the temporary results of the ebullitions, the confusions and apparent dissolutions which usually precede the in- troduction and establishment of a new and better order of things, than as real retrogressions. It is the " shak- ing " of those things which shall be " removed." To us, who reckon time by months and years, centuries ap- pear a long preparatory season. But He who inhabits eternity, and plans for infinite duration, feels no such restraints. With him a thousand years are as one day. The true religion, like Christian civilization, is ^o- gressive, and we can trace its onward and upward pro- gress through all its continuous channels — Ethiopian, Egyptian, Phoenician, Babylonian and Indian, to the Greek and Boman, and onward to the present highly- civilized nations, and we discover that Providence has used each of these nations as far as in their times and circumstances they could be used, to advance the great work of man's moral renovation, (which is the ob- ject of the true religion,) and then transferred it to their successors with all the accumulated advantages of their respective predecessors. Could we stand in the council chamber of heaven, and with the eye of Omniscience sui'vey in the field of our vision the whole of the divine procedure towards our world, we should see a steady, onward, irresistible march of Providence, executing the divine purposes and at every step approaching the goal of a final and glorious consummation. But standing as we do at an infinite re- move from the Imperial centre, and amidst all the dark- ness, disorders and perversion of sin where so much is to be undone before God's pecuhar work on earth can be done — where there must be so much puUing down of both superstructure and foundation, before the true Temple can be reared and completed, 'preparatory work often FIKST WHAT SIN CAN DO. 341 appears to us not the work of progress, but of retrogres- sion. The correct view we believe is, that the energies of Providence are engaged to erect a perfect building — to elaborate and complete a perfect system. But as he will do this through the medium of human sagacity and toU, all possible systems, we had almost said, are permitted to exist while the great building — the true system — is in progress, that an endless variety of facts may be elicited, experiments tried and results arrived at, from which, as from a profuse mass and medley, human wisdom may choose the good and eschew the bad, and under the eye of the great Architect, produce the perfect temple. Hence the many strange systems, developments and fantasies, which have been permitted, not only in religion, but in pohtics, ethics, etc. They are the materials from which to select. The middle ages were peculiarly proH- fic in these, and as peculiarly preparatory to the advanced state of the world which followed. This advanced state was a result — a compound — a fabrication from preexist- ing materials, all thrown into the crucible together, fused — the dross being removed — and run in a new mould. ill. It comports with the divine plan that sin should have its perfect work. Earth is a usurped province — Satan is the " god of this world." And the history of his reign is written with a pen of iron, and shall be read in heavenly places, an indelible lesson throughout the interminable duration of eternity, presenting an awfully edifying con- trast of the misery of sin and the beauty of holiness. The world is a vast machine, in every part made right, and if managed right could produce nothing but holiness and happiness. • Yet under the administration of his Satanic Majesty, so completely perverted is everything that the world is as notorious for violence and corruption as, under a right regimen, it would be for peace and 342 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. purity. In allowing Satan to dabble, as he is always disposed to, in the religious affairs of the world, in poli- tics, in the social and domestic economy of men, in their science and literature, and in yielding him the vast re- sources of the world, God has furnished all his intelligent creatures a durable and melancholy specimen of what sort of use sin makes of things and creatures originally and intrinsically good. And when this miserable experi- ment shall have been sufficiently tried, and its results made sufficiently manifest, the great King, the rightful Sovereign, shall put down the Usurper and exhibit on the same field the diametrically opposite, the infinite benefi- cent and glorious results of His reign. The extravagances, superstitions and cruelties of false rehgions — or, as Carlyle would have it, " their bewilder- ing, inextricable jungle of delusions, conclusions, false- hoods and absurdities," stand before us as so many per- versions of the truth — the " many inventions "of sin — not original errors but corruptions and perversions. We shall now undertake to confirm what we have before asserted, that religion,, philosophically regarded, is one grand consecutive, progressive system from its germ in the family of the first Adam to its glorious consummation in the family of the second Adam. And that correspond- ing with this there has run a parallel series of counter- feits, imitating the genuine in form and lettering, yet in- trinsically possessing little or nothing in common. Satan is a bold and accurate imitator, not (from poHcy only) an inventor, in the things of religion. He too well knows the force of man's religious instinct, and too well understands that there is a spirit in man which " witnes- ses with the spirit of God, approving as heaven-born, the rehgion of God's revealing, whether it be shadowed forth but obscurely, or revealed clearly, to expect to palm on the world a sheer fabrication of his own. He pays to HISTORY OF THE TEUE EELIGION. 343 divine wisdom the forced homage of clothing his falsehoods in the costume of truth — in the panoply of heaven. In taking a brief survey of the successive and progres- sive developments of true religion we shall be able to trace a series of corresponding counterfeits, by which the Devil has contrived to blind the eyes and delude the souls of the tribes and kindreds of the earth in the diffe- rent ages of the world. Throughout the whole he has not failed to keep pace with the march of providential development, changing and modifying, adding and sub- tracting as the world advanced, and has, one after ano- ther, opened the successive scenes in the great drama of redemption. We date the history of the true religion in the family of Adam. Immediately on the FaU, a remedy for the great moral disease of man was revealed and the Church of God instituted, and from this point radiates the first rays of light over a dark world. This light increased and spread through a succession of holy men composing the Chui"ch from Adam to Noah. The posterity of Seth transmitted the blessing through many generations, and doubtless among many tribes of the newly peopled earth. In the days of Enos there was a remarkable extension of the Church, and Enoch was a city set on a hill which could not be hid. There must have been at least a very general knowledge of the true God and of the way in which he ought to be worshipped among the nations who lived before the flood. Nor is it certain that men had fallen into idolatry or that any great systems of religious error had yet been consolidated. Wickedness there was, and violence and corruption, which cried to heaven for vengeance, yet perhaps not yet organized into system. Noah transplanted the germ of antediluvian piety into the new world, where it took root and early spread over the newly peopled earth. 344 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. Then followed tlie clearer manifestation of the truth to Abraham, which continued from the calling of the father of the faithful till the giving of the law at Sinai. Then came the gorgeous ceremonial of the tabernacle in the wilderness, shadowing forth new truths and elucidat- ing old ones, and all looking forward with a clearer distinctness to Christ, the great reality. Then followed the spiritual kingdom of Christ, or the setting up of the true tabernacle. In Judaism, which was the growth of a thousand years, and of which modern Judaism is the Popery, we meet the first great rescue and concentration of whatever was true in former systems of religion. In Christianity we have the first true 'Church. This is the summation of the whole. But we are at present interested rather to trace the corresponding counterfeits, that we may see how men swerved from the simple truth as taught in nature's book, worshipping the work rather than the great Worker, the creature than the Creator, yet iu the perversion there still remain the indubitable traces of the original and the true. As an example of this, we may refer to the well-known Incarnations of Vishnu of Hindoo mythology, in which we can scarcely fail to discover the true idea of the Incarna- tion of the true Deity. But we are furnished in ancient mythology with a yet more striking illustration in the case of O siris, the celebrated hero-god of the Egyptians. This Deity about whom clustered all their hopes of im- mortality, was fabled to have slept in death and to have risen triumphant over the powers of evil. He was ac- knowledged as the god to be worshipped throughout the great valley of the Nile. There is something singular in the history of this In- carnation. Osiris is the Messiah of the old Egyptian re- ligion. And it is remarkable how many of the attributes OSmiS THE EGYPTIAN MESSIAH. 345 of the true Messiah are made to appear in him. He was the Judge of the hving and the dead. The oath taken in his name was the most solemn and inviolable of all oaths. Goodness was his primary attribute, and that goodness was displayed in his leaving the abodes of Paradise, tak- ing a human form, going about doing good, and then sink- ing into death, in a conflict with evil, that he might rise again to spread blessings over the world, and be re- warded with the office of Judge of the living and the dead. Osiris is called the " Grace Manifester," " Truth Eevealer," "Opener of Good." The ancient records speak of him too, as " full of grace and truth." He was the supreme God in Egypt, and the only one whose name was never pronounced. In all these points there is certainly a very singular similarity of attributes, life, death and resurrection, with that of the Christian's Messiah. But whence this assim- ilation ? Perchance it may be replied that Abraham had clear conceptions of Him who was to come, and that lie communicated this knowledege to the Egyptians on his first visit to their country. But before Abraham was, this singular ritual of Osiris was known and celebrated. " Tombs as old as the Pyramids declare all this." Others trace this knowledge through a channel further back, making these the indelible traces of the preaching of Noah on the mind of the world. Noah was a preacher of righteousness. His immediate posterity, acquainted no doubt with the revelations already extant concerning the Messiah, settled in Egypt — became the founders oi an Empire there, the compilers of their sacred books and the originators of their religious system. Regarding all false religions as merely perversions of the one true religion, we may assume that the religion of ancient Egypt was made up of such religious notions as were extant at the time ; consequently it is not strange 346 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN, - that so prominent an element or idea as that of an incar- nation of the deity should have been drawn from the true religion and incorporated in this ancient system of idolatry. But all this was scarcely more than 'physical religion — at most but intellectual, involving little or nothing of the moral element. It worshipped a natural divinity, a god of power, valor, prowess, the grand architect and gar- nisher of the heavens. Not tUl a much later period do we find the moral ele- ment introduced into rehgious beliefs. That the divine power which they worshipped had a moral basis — that God is a moral governor and men subjects of a moral government, they did not discover. The introduction of this element was an advanced step in the history of rehgion — the result of a special revelation. How much of the moral was introduced into these early systems from reve- lations made to the Patriarchs and early prophets, we cannot determine. True it is that the darkness of human depravity soon overshadowed the fairest of these forms of belief. The light in them became darkness. And we now can only discover the true by its counterfeit. Seeing the spurious coin we judge of the genuine. In the progress of rehgious belief, I said, came Jvdaism — not a new religion but a new dispensation of the ancient faith, clothed in new light and the moral element more distinctly marked. Moses was not an originator but a compiler. The beggarly elements of the world were now clothed in a celestial dress. The physical yielded to the moral. God revealed himself as the moral governor. The scattered rays of light which had hitherto done little more among the nations than to make the surrounding darkness visible, seem now concentrated on Sinai, burst forth from the terrible cloud with all the vividness of a new revelation and all the terribleness of the divine NEW LIGHT FROM SINAI. 347 majesty challenging the homage and love of a rebellious race. These collected rays were woven into a beam, which we call the divine law. What of God had been but indistinctly shadowed forth in nature or imperfectly revealed to the Patriarchs was now clearly made known. His moral character was made to stand out in bold relief of which his law was made the transcript. Doctrines, duties, precepts were of consequence marked with equal clearness. It was a new and vastly improved edition of any previous system of faith. It was truth developed, defined, emancipated as coming from the hands of the Patriarchs to whom God had entrusted the clearest reve- lations of himseK — or truth rescued from the abuse, corruption and darkness into which it had fallen in the hands of surrounding Pagan nations. An imposing ceremonial — new only in its form — was now adopted. Here again Moses was not the originator. Most of the rites and ceremonies of the Levitical law were already in vogue. Moses collected the scattered fragments and wrote them in a book — reduced a dis- tracted ceremonial to order, defined the number, circum- stances and uses of such rites as God approved, insti- tuted an order of men who should take charge of the sacerdotal department, designated the persons who should hold office, and made the whole more clearly significant. It now became a system with an officiating priesthood and a law, aU setting forth a Messiah who should come. We have noted, as we have passed through the dark generations of idolatry, vestiges of light and truth — light- houses guiding wrecked mariners in the way of life. A very remarkable instance of this we meet in the follow- ing hymn of Cleanthes, dating back into a remote anti- quity, and Justly regarded as a remarkable testimony to the truth — a hght shining through long ages of darkness. It was read by St. Paul — quoted on Mars Hill. It sets 348 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. forth God as the Creator of all things, the Benefactor, supreme King and Judge, exposes the folly of idolatry and inculcates a pure morahty : * Great Jove, most glorious of the immortal gods, Wide known by many names, Almighty One, King of all nature, ruling all by law. We mortals thee adore, as duty calls ; For thou our Father art, and we thy sons, On whom the gift of speech thou hast bestowed Alone of all that live and move on earth. Thee, therefore, will I praise ; and ceaseless show To all thy glory and thy mighty power. This beauteous system circling round the earth Obeys thy will, and, wheresoe'er thou leadest, Freely submits itself to thy control. Such is, in thine unconquerable hands, The two-edged, fiery, deathless thunderbolt ; Thy minister ofp.ower, before whose stroke All nature quails, and trembling, stands aghast ; By which the common reason thou dost guide, Pervading all things, filling radiant worlds. The sun, the moon, and all the host of stars, So great art thou, the universal King. Without thee naught is done on earth, 0 God ! Nor in the heavens above, nor in the sea ; Naught save the deeds unwise of sinful men. Yet harmony from discord thou dost bring ; That which is hateful, thou dost render fair ; Evil and good dost so co-ordinate, That everlasting reason shall bear sway ; Which sinful men, bhnded, forsake and shun, Deceived and hapless, seeking fancied good. The law of God they wUl not see nor hear ; Which if they would obey, would lead to life. But they unhappy rush, each in his way. For glory some in eager conflict strive : Others are lost inglorious, seeking gain ; To pleasure others turn and sensual joys, Hasting to min, whilst they seek for life. But thou, O Jove ! the giver of all good, Darting the lightning from thy home of clouds, Permit not man to perish darlding thus : EESCUE OF LOST TEUTHS. 349 From folly save* them ; bring them to the light : Give them to know the everlasting law By which in righteousness thou rulest all ; That we, thus honored, may return to thee Meet honor, and with hymns declare thy deeds, And though we die, hand down thy deathless praise. Since nor to men nor gods is higher meed, Than ever to extol with righteous praise The glorious, universal King Divine. " I have said there was originally truth in the old systems of Paganism — they were originally founded in truth — • much of reaUty in them — a worship of God as they Icnew him — saw him, or through the sources by which he re- vealed himself to them. But times change. What was true in its time, became false. Further revelations gave men higher views of God on the one hand, and further developments of human depravity led men to lose sight of God in the objects they worshipped as true emblems of the divinity and to worship these objects themselves. The old systems existed for a purpose — answered that purpose — blasted or will last till the good and true is transfused in the new system and then will die, having done the work Of their generation. The design of Judaism (as of Christianity) therefore in her indignant denunciation of Paganism, is not the con- demnation of the truth which was then revealed, but it is to bring rehgion back to that truth — and not that truth only, but to that truth as expounded and cleared from the dross of error and its boundaries enlarged by the rich accessions of all subsequent revelations. New mines were opened, richer and more abundant, and yet all the pure gold of the old ones was carefully preserved and worked into the new tabernacle. But the general views here taken, supply, in this connection, another thought. It is that we discover herein reasons for one common and universal religion, which 350 THE FOOT-PRINTS OP SATAN. shall finally pervade every human heart, and enclose in its broad fold the entire family of man. All nature proclaims such a consummation for man, and in equal distinctness proclaims Christianity to be such a religion. It is, as no other religion, adapted to man's wants, to his progress and to his full development, whether it be in this life or the life to come. It is under the auspices of this form of religion that mind is quickened and matured and made to subserve the great purposes of human advancement — that human genius is set on the alert of invention and discovery — that the powers of nature are evolved, applied and appropriated to man's use and progress. It is this form of religion which addresses itself to the heart, and cultivates the moral feelings and evolves and applies the moral powers of man. It addres- ses itself to the whole man, develops all his powers, and fits him for his full and final destiny. It is a service, adoration and praise paid to the God of nature. It is a supreme veneration of the power that made the world and keeps every star in its course, and manages the great and universal machine as he pleases. It is the supreme admiration of the wisdom which de- vises, adjusts, preserves and adapts aU things so as to secure the whole against a single failure, and to bring out of the whole the great and benevolent end designed. It is the " transcendent wonder " of the love and benevolence of God in so forming, controlling and adjusting all things as to bring good out of the whole. No poison is so venomous that it is not made to yield a sweet, no cloud so dark, no tempest so devastating, no providential dispensation so disastrous, that it yields not in the end some permanent and substantial good. In the highest possible sense then the religion of Christ is a natural rehgion. Did we need further proof of this we should find it in its peculiar adaptations to the CHKISTIANITY POE MAN. 351 social and civil progress of man. It is this form of reli- gion which, either in its more immediate bearings, or m its remoter outgoings, is revolutionizing the world. It has made the earth to disgorge its mineral wealth, and has moulded it into every conceivable utensil, tool or machine that can contribute to human progress. It has, in the form of modern commerce, traversed every sea, made nations neighbors, increased beyond all precedent the wealth of the world, checkered every land with rail- ways and telegraphs, and conveyed abroad the messengers of the Cross and supplied the means and applicances for the universal diffusion of the gospel. It has translated the Bible into almost every foreign tongue, and given a power and ubiquity to the press quite unknown in the world before. It is the author of all the freedom in the world — the founder of all constitutional government, and it has pervaded the world at large with a higher degree of intelligence, and the diffusion of the higher type of civilization which now blesses the world. And what but the expansive, rousing, enterprising spirit infused by Christianity has so stimulated the migratory instincts of men at the present day ? These are indicative of the no distant advances which await our race — procursive of the breaking up of the old reclusive habits of the species, and introductory of a system by which different branches of the human family become better known to each other, and by an interchange of sentiments and thoughts, as well as of the commodities of commerce, they contribute to a mutual and indefinite advancement. Christianity, as its most obvious impress indicates and its most spontaneous workings everywhere vouch, was made for man — for man in his expansion into a full man- hood— for whom, as the proprietor and controller of all the powers and resources of nature as placed at his dis- posal for his advancement, whether physical, mental, or 352 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. religious, and for the realization of aU he is promised, or all he is capable of, here or hereafter. No other rehgion has ever exercised in the world such transforming power, no other contains in itself the ele- ments of such transformations. False religions are local in their character — temporary in duration, and mercenary in their application, and degTading and oppressive in proportion as their spirit pervades the hearts and minds of their votaries. They are most obviously made for the priest, the king, and the Devil and not for the people — ^not for the expansion of the human mind — not for the culti- vation of the human heart — not to elevate society, cherish freedom, define and protect human rights, or bless the race. There are two features of our rehgion which, contem- plated in the present connection, commend it as a religion especially for mail. They are its social character , and its teaching ministry. In these two features it differs essentially from aU false rehgions, and challenges its claims to universal regard and adoption by the whole family of man. In proportion as a rehgion is spurious it substitutes a ritual for a sermon, a ceremonial and a sohtary worship for the social and public worship of the sanctuary — penance for repentance, and the dogmas of priests for the simple teachings of the word of God. XYI. MODERN SPURIOUS RELIGIONS. THEIR PEACTICAL TENDENCIES — RESULTS — INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY — ON GOVERNMENTS, AND ON CHARACTER IN GENERAL — ROME PAPAL AND ROME PAGAN — POINTS OP AGREEMENT. We turn next to the handiwork of our great adver- sary, as seen in his schemes for deluding and then monopoKzing the human mind, and the powers and resources of man, through more modern forms of false religions. As times change, and the world advances, the prince of darkness changes his tactics and the mode of his attack. Hence the different phases of idolatry while the nature and spirit remain the same. Modern false religions have usually been divided into three general classes : Paganism, Mohammedanism and Eomanism. These have a common origin, and they have in their deleterious results on the condition of man, more in common than is generally supposed. Based as they all are on a practical atheism, it is sometimes diffi- cult to determine which of them recognizes the least of the true God. In theory they all acknowledge one su- 23 354: THE FOOT-PKINTS OF SATAN. preme God. But in practice the j as uniformly deny him. Neither call in question the abstract being of God. Such a monstrosity only falls within the dark domains of atheism. In nothing do we more distinctly see the conflict be- tween the corrupt heart, and reason and a right con- science than in the existence and character of these three forms of false rehgion. They propose a compromise be- tween the conflicting elements of man. Reason knows there is a God, conscience feels it and recognizes his right of dominion over us, but the heart denies and revolts. It disdains to acknowledge any such authority. Having no complacency in the character of such a God it would rather have no God. Hence the invention of other gods and of corresponding systems of religion. To the demands of reason and conscience that God be recognized, the heart so far yields, in the instance of false rehgions, as to grant the abstract fact of a God, but reserves to itself the prerogative of clothing this being with attributes congenial with its own corrupt nature. Or it only theoretically acknowledges the being of one supreme God, then adds other lesser deities to whom it pays adorations and praises, while practically it loses sight of both the being and authority of the true God. What, then, has sin done ? It has cast a dark and impenetrable cloud between the effulgence of the great white throne and this lower world. It has covered the earth with darkness and its inhabitants with a gross darkness. It has exercised the uttermost of the power that has been granted it, to shut out God fi'om the world and to usurp his dominion over this part of his empire. How this is done appears in the cursory survey we have taken of the priucipal false rehgions that have afflicted our world and covered its inhabitants with IDOLATEY A CHAEACTEEISTIC OP FALSE EELIGION 355 weeping, lamentation and woe almost from the time tliat God said, " the day in ivJiich ye eat thereof ye shall die." Idolatry has been the prevailing characteristic of every false religion. By which we mean, not necessarily a formal prostration to idols, but an attempt to detract from the most excellent character of God, to think of him and to act as if he were such a one as ourselves, or to substitute something in his place. The particular form that idolatry has assumed in different countries and in different ages of the world, has, as we have seen, depend- ed on the circumstances under which it has existed. The spirit has been essentially the same, but the external shape has varied with the intellectual culture of a nation, with their moral condition, with the degree of the know- ledge they may have attained, and to no inconsiderable extent with the general progress of learning and moral science in the world at large. AU these things, though they have not essentially changed the nature or essence of idolatry have modified its appearances, and not unfre- quently changed its name. Wherever, by strange moral obliquity, a comparatively polished and learned people have been idolaters, they have refined on the grossness of the general system till they have shorn it of many of its more glaring deformities, as well as of some of its more gross enormities, and thus suited it to the age and circumstances in which it was to exist. While, on the other hand, in the darker ages of the world, or among a more ignorant and debased people, it has presented a grosser form and been exemplified in more cruelties and abominations. We may be the more shocked with the latter, while we more thoroughly abhor the aggravated guilt of the former. So insidiously were men at first beguiled into idolatry that we do not greatly wonder at the success of the tempter. No one can look upon the broad expanse of 356 THE FOOT-PKINTS OF SATAN. heaven, set witli ten thousand brilliant gems, in the midst of which the imperial sun has placed his taber- nacle as an Eastern monarch in the midst of his shining hosts, or where the moon bears her mild sway by night, and displays her chastened glory, and not be awed intO' reverence, and be constrained to explain how great, how good, how glorious is he who garnished the heavens as well as he that laid the foundations of the earth. But if we add to the idea the ancients had of the heavens, the notions we have gained by the developments of modern science — if we admit the innumerable hosts of planets that adorn the concave of heaven to be so many worlds like our own, moving majestically round their respective suns and revolving about their axes, producing the revo- lutions of day and night and the vicissitudes of the seasons, and thus fitting them as suitable abodes for animal Hfe — if we admit the numberless stars that twinkle in the uttermost verge of space, to be so many suns — the centres of so many systems that revolve about them, we are overawed by the power, the excellency, and the ma- jesty of Him who spoke them into existence by the word of his power. To one who did not know the deceitful- ness of sin it might seem but a little departure from the true worship to pay honors to the hosts of the firmament as representatives of God. For in nothing is there shad- owed forth more of the infinite Jehovah. Just, as, at a later period in the history of idolatry, it seemed but a slight departure from the worship of the true God to wor- ship Him with the help of pictures and images — and then through the medium of saints and angels, but in the end it proved to be but an entering wedge of a system of idol- atry that has done more than any other to keep the human mind in bondage. Such has been the origin of idolatry in two very differ- ent ages — the one, the idolatry of the Pagan world and MOHAMMEDANISM. 3 J . the other of the Christian world. Pagans use the same arguments to vindicate idol worship that Romanists do to defend the idolatry of their rehgion. The one differs from the other in hfctle else than in name and in some of the modes of performing their worship. The one is the idolatry of a Christian age, the other of a Pagan age. Both were devices of the arch Fiend to cheat men out of a knowledge of God, and finally to beguile them of their immortal souls. Mohammedanism, the other principal form of idolatry, bears nearly the same relation to Paganism that Roman- ism does to Christianity, in this respect, that it is a modi- fication of idolatry suited to the climate, habits, mental culture and moral tastes of those extensive oriental nations that had heretofore been Pagan. It was nearly contemporary in its origin with Romanism, and is as pecuharly suited to the regions of country over which it was destined to spread, as Romanism is to its respective field. Here it is worthy of remark that the introduction and promulgation of Christianity in our world produced a very marked change in aU the existing systems of idolatry. A new light broke in upon the world, and idolatry had now to be essentially modified so as to suit the new state into which the world was brought by the introduction of Christianity. In some respects it must be made more subtle, in other things less gross. Here it must suffer an amputation of excrescences or of decayed parts, there it must receive an addition. Some systems were thus modified or remodelled where others were com- pelled to give place to altogether a new order of things. Of the former are Brahminism of India, and Boodhism of India and China, and the Eastern portions of Asia, and of the latter we may instance the old systems of idolatry that were spread over Persia, Arabia, and all the 358 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. western portion of Asia and the adjoining regions of Europe. The first were modified as to some of their objects and modes of worship — and the idea of the incar- nation of the deity and of vicarious atonement were in- troduced— though in so corrupted a form as to make them serve none of the great purposes of incarnation and atonement by Jesus Christ. While the other systems that I have named, gave place to Mohammedanism, which preserved the spirit of the old systems under a new costume to suit the spirit of the times. What, then, have we before us as the legitimate ojQfspring of sin and the power and craft of Satan ? Nothing less than the monster Idolatry in its threefold deformity of Paganism, Papacy and Mohammedanism. Would we here estimate the magnitude of the evil in- flicted on our world, we must commence a calculation which the arithmetic of eternal ages can only finish ; we must estimate all the evils of idolatry since the first de- parture from God. We must survey all the mental deso- lations it has produced, we must bring into the estimate all the 'moral wastes that have followed its awful march. Not a germ of moral growth can thrive — nor scarcely exist on the soil of idolatry. Every generous affection of the heart is paralyzed, eveiy aspiring and noble exercise of the mind smothered. Mind is in bondage — the whole man is a slave where wood and stone, or any created thing receives the honors that are alone due to God. Who can estimate the misery, the degradation, the ignor- ance that are entailed on an idolatrous people ? Who can count up the worth of the social affections it has blighted, and the social happiness it has destroyed? Who can calculate the domestic ties it has severed, and the wretchedness it has produced in the tenderest rela- tions in life ? Or if we advert but for a moment to the yet more THE WOEST OF IDOLATKY. 359 bligliting influence, if possible, it exercises on man's civil relations — on laws and governments, we yet more sadly lament the dire mischiefs of sin and the wiles of om- Foe. It is the father of despotism, of oppression and war, but never of true hberty, of national prosperity and thrift. But all calculations fail when we attempt to estimate things of such a nature. It is not in any one thing, nor in aU we have named or can name, that aU the evils of idolatry appear. Its dismal details are met everywhere. It hardens the heart, dries up the natural affections, saps the foundations of virtue, corrupts the fountain of mo- ral principles, and blasts all that is lovely and dignified in man. The worst of heathenism is not seen in a few widow burnings — or in the annual exposure of a few thousand infants — or in the exposure of as many sick, infirm and aged on the banks of the sacred river — or in the long and severe pilgrimages that are performed, and the cruel and bloody penances that are suffered. These may attract the attention and shock the senses of the traveller or the superficial observer, and thus appear the worst of Paganism. But you must look farther to see the des- olation of its abominations. This can only be seen in the withering influence it has in all the ordinary relations of life. It enters into everything and leaves the marks of its desolation everywhere. A personal acquaintance only can convey to the mind what sin hath done in the establishment and support of idolatry. Here it has achieved its saddest triumph. It has enthralled the mind of more than three fourths of the human family. It has robbed them of their happiness — disrobed them of their innocence and shut them out from the smiles of heaven. Would we here get more adequate and correct ideas of the machinations and mischiefs of man's great Foe, we must look away to where " Satan's seat " is and contem- 360 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. plate sin in its less controlled sphere. We must see what it has done in enslaving nations, and poisoning the streams of life among congregated millions. We must let the eye for a moment pass over the dark domains of idolatry. Having classed Komanism among systems of idolatry, the reader may ask proofs, if there be any, to justify such a classification. Is the Papacy Christianity or is it but a new edition, under another title, of old Pagan Home ? A new, improved, and more mischievously ruinous engine in the hands of our adversary by which to enslave the nations and decoy to death. That Komanism is a stu- pendous power in the world is but too obvious. But is it a power for good or for evil, for Christ or for the Devil ? Do we find it engaged in the interests of freedom, of hu- manity, of a Christian civihzation, of Hght, knowledge and a pure rehgion, or in the service of despotism, op- pression, persecution, ignorance and all kinds of immo- rality and impurity. The following points of resemblance will speak for themselves. In origin and subsequent development it would seem nearly allied to Paganism. It is a system of idolatry whose basis is infidehty, yet its idolatry is in form and pretence Christianized and its infidelity the practical unbelief of the Christian doctrines it professes. It is the grand counterfeit of Christianity, its material the same as that which made up the religion of Pagan Eome, its/orm and lettering stolen from the image and superscription of the religion of Calvary. We may represent her as a woman, whose form and whose features, though awry, and marred, and disfigured by meretricious ornaments and fragments from Pagan shrines, are essentially Christian, yet whose spirit and power is that of the Pagan Beast whose bulls and ana- themas are thunderbolts borrowed from Jupiter, whose ROME pagan: eome papal. 361 costume is stolen from the temples of different heathen deities, or from the wardrobe of Judaism. From the Persian priest she received her tiara, from the Eoman augur her staff, from the Jewis rabbin her embroidered mantle, and her scarlet attire from the great red dragon. From the undying flame on Apollo's shrine she bor- rowed the idea of the ever-lighted candles which illu- mine her altars, and from the vestal virgins that once found sanctuary in her temples, reappeared in the tem- ples of Christian Eome the obsequious handmaids of our Lady, who sitteth on the seven hills, changed somewhat, but not in spirit, and equally subserving the purposes of a corrupt Church and a licentious priesthood. Let Eome, if she will, christen this unfortunate ap- pendage to her sanctuaries by the name of nuns, or by the more taking appellation of " Sisters of Charity," (and some of these we honor for their works of mercy,) they are but the vestals of Paganism, reintroduced on the stage from behind the curtain whither they had retired on the approach of the sun that arose amidst the hills of Judea, and made to act a part not dissimilar in its nature, yet amidst halls hung with other drapery, and to cater to the passions of an audience whose tastes were less gross, yet whose corrupt soul demanded in substance the same aliment. Paganism revived in the form of Christianity. Saints took the place of gods and heroes — pictures and images the place of idols. Were we here to go into detail we could verify all we have intimated touching the identity of Eomish and Pagan idolatry, showing that Eome has done little more than to recast old material, to remould, without destroy- ing its nature, and reconstruct a new image — which, in- deed, is not new, it being in its moral image but a fac- simile of the old. It has indeed, affixed on it a new superscription — given it a new name and sealed it 362 THE FOOT-PBINTS OF SATAN. with a new mark, and made its hand point toward the cross, while it is full of abominations as foul as ever polluted the shrines of Babylon or Sodom. The following comparison between the religions of Eiome and Brahma will exhibit at least some of the grounds we have for the opinion that the Papacy is but a counterfeit of Christianity, and but a republication of a volume in the form of false religions, which has been un- rolling itself with the revolutions of time, the same in spirit and matter, though varying in type and form, to accommodate itself to man's religious instincts as mo- dified in different stages of development in society and in human improvement. The intelligent reader will supply the counterfeit of Popery while we refer to several points of agreement as exhibited on the part of Brahminism. The Hindoos in theory acknowledge one supreme God, yet worship him only through some medium, hence the multiplicity of their gods. The Brahmins in defence of idolatry, afl&rm that their images and visible representations are but helps to devotion, not necessary for the learned and holy, but indispensable for the ignorant and unstable, who cannot contemplate divine essences and indulge in holy abstractions, but must have some visible object before them in order to fix the mind. Speaketh not Bome the same thing ? The Hindoos have their gooroos, mediators and intercessors between them and their gods — their mendicants, as gosav-nees, varagees — their hermits, monks, and devotees — their Bhuts, answering to Romish Friars — their vashias, wives of the gods or nuns. Pilgrimages, penances, bodily inflictions, are the rank luxuriance of a heathen soil transplanted to Bom an ground. The Hin- doos beheve righteoitsness may be accumulated by good works, and penances etc., and be transferred to others — which may be bought and sold. They perform the Shaadhu EOMISH AND HINDOO IDOLATEY. ' 363 for their dead relations, {. e. feast them through the mouths of the Brahmins and give money to the priests to get their souls out of Purgatory. They use the Rosary — perform Jupu Tupu (repetitions of prayers, names of deities, and various penances) — practice numerous fast- ings and observe endless feasts and holy-days — have the lioly water, which is of two kinds : the first, one of they've natural products of the cow ; the other, the water in which the priest has dipped his toe. They divide sin into in- ward and outward — venal and mortal — make the ignorance of the people and their servility to the priest prime articles of their faith — carefully keep from them the Shastas or sacred books, locked up in an unknown tongue — make religion the especial and almost exclusive business of the priest — carry out their gods in solemn 'procession — use bells in their worship — and keep lights 'burning continually, especially at the tombs of deceased relatives. Indeed the Komanists of India are scarcely in a single particular behind their Hindoo neighbors in the observance of heathen rites and superstitions. Their priests exercise over their minds the same unlimited con- trol, work on their fears and superstitions in the same way, practice pious frauds and worship their images, apparently with the same spirit and in nearly the same form as the Hindoos. We libel the Hindoo if we call him a worse idolater than the Eomanist. Compare the gorgeous mummery of the fete in honor of St. Bosalia at Palermo, in the island of Sicily, called " Corso Trionfale," with the festival of Juggernaut in Hindostan, and tell me, if you can, which has in it the most of heathenism. Bead, who can, a description of Bosaha's car, of its decorations and gorgeous trappings — of the shouts and adorations of a tumultuous throng of superstitious, ignorant votaries, and not believe himself in the land of Orissa. Substitute Juggernaut for the name 364 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. of the Sicilian goddess, change a few other names, and give the whole a Brahminian costume and scenery, and wherein has the heathenism of Sicily the preeminence over that of Orissa ? It is a difference in name but not in spirit — in pretension and arrogance and hypocrisy, without the remotest resemblance to the religion of the meek and lowly One. No one can read the history of the early corruption of the Church, from the third to the seventh century, and re- main ignorant of the source from which this corruption mainly originated. The assimilation of the Christian Church, in many of its rites, usages and modes of wor- ship, with those of the heathen, is wofully striking. The great and good Constantino himself contributed much to deck the Church with the meretricious orna- ments of Paganism. The denial to the people of the Bible, is a feature of the Papacy borrowed from Paganism. As in the one case, so in the other, the sacred books are only for the Priesthood. Eiomanism, hke Pagan religions, is a religion of sense, its emotions produced by sensible objects, as images, pictures, and things material. The idea of sin dwell- ing in the animal system is stolen from Heathen phi- losophy. So, of consequence, physical mortifications, in which the Papal religion abounds, appear in discred- itable rivalry of their heathen original. Again persecution, which has been so distinguishing a feature of the religion of Borne, is of Pagan origin. The conquest of a country was the conquest of its gods. There was not often much ostensible resistance to the new divinities of the conquerors ; and no visible perse- cution. Pagans and Papists walk together because agreed in all essential points. They live in harmony, EOME papal: ROME PAGAN. 365 as in India at the present day, and see no occasion for persecution. Classes for the dead are none other than the practice of the Shradh among the Hindoos, in a poor apology of a Christian dress. The near relatives of the deceased as- semble generally on the bank of some river, or about a tank where they perform numerous ceremonies called Shradh, in honor of and for the supposed benefit of the dead. It is usual to perform a monthly Shradh for the first year of the death of a parent, and once or more in every year is Shradh performed for all their ancestors. These rites are believed to be very meritorious, as well as to give pleasure to the departed, and greatly to inure to their benefit. Hence great importance is attached to them, and no pains or money spared in sending succor to their departed ones. And who does not here see the origin of Romish Masses for the dead as a most prominent rite of the Eomish Church ? In the garb of Pope as universal bishop, the Pontifex Maximus of Home Pagan has once more appeared, its priesthood, its pompous rites and gorgeous dresses, its sacrifices, incense and altars are all borrowed, partly from Pagan Eome, partly from Judaism. Its holy days, fasts, feasts, saints' days, are purely of heathen pedigree. Heathen idols have in modern Home received a new no- menclature. Jupiter is now St. Peter. Apollo is St. John. Venus is the Madonna. " The second Beast gives power to the image of the first Beast." Eev. xiii. 15. Home Papal is Bome Pagan perpetuated, modified and adjusted to the spirit and progress of the times. The image of St. Mary usurps the place, in the Pantheon at Bome, once occupied by the colossal statue of Jupiter Ultor. The superb bronze statue of Jupiter, ninety feet in height, which rises above the high altar of St. Peter's, was pillaged from the old Boman Pantheon. And the 366 THE FOOT-PKIHTS OF SATAN. beautiful porphyry urn which adorned its portico now embellishes the gorgeous chapel of St. John Lateran. The house of All Saints at Rome Papal was once the house of All Gods (the Pantheon) of Rome Pagan. The " Holy Chair," which used to be brought out and exhibited to the gaze of the admiring multitude on the day , of its festival (Jan. 28th) was, on one of those occasions (in 1662) discovered to be covered with heathenish and ob- scene car%dngs, representing the doings of Hercules, And not thinking this exactly complimentary to the taste of St. Peter in the selection of his chair, the parties concerned have since suffered it to repose quietly in the chancel. So much for the pagan origin of this famous relic. But this famous chair, it seems, has been allowed to teU another tale of the common brotherhood of false rehgions. We are not only able to trace so near a connection be- tween Rome Papal and Rome Pagan that we feel no dif- ficulty in taking the one as the legitimate successor of the other, but we discover to our further surprise (if Lady Morgan's account of St. Peter's chair be relied on) that Rome and Mecca have a nearer relation than had been supposed. From our Lady's account (in her book on Italy) it would seem that an old carving was found on it when subjected to a sacrilegious examination in the days of Napoleon — an inscription to this effect, " There is BUT ONE God, and Mohammed is his Prophet." The very creed of the Mussulman, and a very befitting one to appear on the chief seat of the Papal Beast. If our position be correct that Popery is the summa- tion and concentration of all past systems of error and rehgious delusion, modified and suited to the times — the master-piece of the Devil, then this symbolical connec- tion with Islam and the old Pagan worship, is as we should expect. BeHeving as we do that the true Temple is built of materials collected from all bygone systems THE EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY. 367 and experiences — from all tlie right and the good of the past, going in to make up the one true Temple, and to vindicate the immortahty of the good and the right, so we believe we are to look for a corresponding summation and concentration of the ways, means, materials and modes of working employed by our great adversary in the stupendous work of false rehgions. His systems too, are progressive — accumulative — all past systems repre- sented in the present, and his last, his chmax, his consum- mation. Indeed, the traveller in Home is at once struck with the resemblance of the present worship of the Bomans with the old Pagan mythology of ancient Rome. Popery is httle more than old Roman Paganism in a new dress. Yet we concede that the errors of Romanism are not "absolute falsehood, but corrupted truths." Or rather " the principal delusions which have at different times exercised a pernicious influence over humanity were founded, not on absolute falsehood, but on misconceived and perverted truths," and therefore are deserving of commiseration as well as blame. Again, Egyptian mythology is made to contribute its quota to adorn the Pantheon of Papal Rome and to make up the number of its gods. The moon, we know, was the principal emblem of the mother god of Egypt. Hence we meet the Papal goddess (the Virgin) painted on the windows of Romish cathedrals, standing on the moon. The tapers too, burnt before Romish altars, had, from the earliest times, been used to Hght up the splendor of Egyptian altars in the darkness of their temples. From the same source, too, was derived the custom of shaving the crown of the head, which the Egyptian priests prac- ticed centuries before the religion of Rome was known. Bosman, a Dutch writer, speaking of Romish missions among the very degraded Pagans of Guinea, supposes 368 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. "the Romanists must be the most successful missionaries among them on account of the Tiear resemblance of Roman- ism to the religion of the people of Guinea. They agree with them in several particulars, especially in their ridiculous ceremonies, in their abstinence from certain kinds of food at certain times, and in their reHance on antiquity and the Hke." The Negroes, however, seemed to take a more common-sense view of the matter, judg- ing that " so small a change was not worth the making." Or we may say Romanism assimilates to Deism in its avowed denial of the supreme authority of revelation ; to Mohammedanism, in its resort to force to propagate itself and extend its dogmas ; and to Paganism, in its idolatry and the gorgeousness of its worship. Again, the corruptions of Judaism have contributed no inconsiderable share to the Papaby. Like the Papists, the Jews do not approve of a man's reading much of the Bible, because it may lead him to speculate. They say the Rabbinical commentaries are as much as is proper for the people to know. Who does not discern the pro- totype of the Papacy here ? and the footprints of the great deceiver in both ? Jesuitical casuistry is as much a feature of modern Judaism as of Popery. Both systems are pervaded by a spirit of craft, selfishness and spiritual tyranny. Popery is Gentile Rabbinism — makes traditions at least of equal authority with the Bible, and makes the Church the expounder of both. Absolution is a doctrine of perverted Judaism. All obligations were solved on the great day of atonement. Improving on this the Romish priest can, for money, absolve from all sins past and grant indulgence for all sins in the future. XVII. FALSE RELIGIONS.— (Continued.) POPEEY THE GREAT COUNTERFEIT — GREAT TRUTHS WHICH EOME HAS PRESERVED YET PERVERTED — PAGANISM CON- TRIBUTED LARGELY TO POPERY. But we must not overlook or fail to credit Eome with certain great radical truths and certain essential features of a true religion, which in spite of all her sad and mortal perversions, and as gems among an irretriev- able heap of rubbish, she has retained — the form and not the spirit. And what is quite worthy of notice, Eome has preserved some truths in greater distinctness than Pro- testantism has, as the form and the superscrij)tion of the counterfeit is sometimes found to be more perfect than those of the real metal. It will not be amiss here to enumerate some of the particulars in which Eome has preserved certain great truths and outlines of Christianity with great distinctness, yet so caricatured and perverted them as to more than neutralize their power — to make them the hiding of her power for evil more than justifying the appellation we have apphed to her as the great Counterfeit of Christi- anity. ^ 24 370 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. Nor need we confine our remarks to Rome. Otlier false religions exhibit unmistakable traces of revealed truth, which, like diamonds in huge heaps of rubbish, lie dormant and powerless, but stand as so many lights shining (though dimly) in dark places. To rescue and burnish and reset in the diadem of truth these fragment- ary gems is the work of an all-renovating Christianity. The work of the missionary, philosophically speaking, is not so much to introduce new ideas into the mind of the heathen as to revive and correct old ones — to remove the rubbish by which sin and ignorance have buried from sight the original truths on which the given system is built — to tear away the hay, wood and stubble, and re- produce the silver, gold and precious stones of pristine truth. They know God, yet serve him not as God. They have their saviours, atoners — substitutes — mediators many. The idea of sacrifice and atonement is rife among them, but all perverted. They believe in the na- tive depravity of man — the necessity of another's right- eousness to be set to their account — in a state of future reward and punishment — in all the fundamental truths of our religion. Yet practically they ignore the whole. Through the excessive blindness of their minds they have totally perverted the ways of the Lord. The idea of sacrifices and burnt-offerings — notice of a universal deluge — the recognition by Pagans, Moslems, and Christians of every name, of Abraham as the great man of the whole religious world, and the universal honor that has been accorded to Moses and the prophets, are foot-prints in the deserts that no moral siroccos have ever been able to obliterate. And yet more remarkable is the general adoption of the division of time into weeks. From the Christian nations in Europe to the Chinese Sea, including Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese and Eomans, we TEACES OP THE TEUE EELIGION. 371 trace at least a traditional connection witli the true re- ligion. In India the division of time into weeks has all along been observed. The nomenclature of the days is derived from the names of the sun, moon and planets, exactly as in Europe. The remembrance, however, of the seventh as a Sabbath or sacred day of rest, has been completely lost. Yet enough remains to indicate its origin, yet stripped of all which sin and Satan would have expunged. Perhaps there is no rehgion which has not truth mixed with whatever ingredients constitute it. "Paganism," says Carlyle, " is a veracious expression of the earnest, awestruck feelings of man towards the universe." — Pa- ganism emblemed chiefly the operations of nature, the "ejBforts, vicissitudes, combinations and destinies of things and men in the world." While " Christianis^i " emblems the laws of human duty, the moral law of man. The one for the sensuous nature, the other for the moral. Indeed we shall discover traces of the true religion run- ning through all the turbid streams of idolatry. The in- stitution of sacrifice for sin, for example, as practiced first in Eden, and thence down through all after generations, prefiguring the great reality, was doubtless a positive in- stitution, and not a dictate, as many suppose, of natural rehgion. But it is more especially to Bomanism that we would look for our illustrations. Let us first trace some of the great truths incorporated in this colossal system of error and delusion, and then see how they are perverted and abused. I. The Papists are right in the honor they give to the Head of the Church. He is worthy of all honor, of su- preme reverence, and untiring service. He is infallible. But they grievously mistake in putting a man in the place of God, and of honoring and serving the creature 372 THE rOOT-PRINTS OP SATAN. and not the Creator. Too much importance cannot be attached to the idea of headship in the Church. And having put the crown upon the right head we cannot bow at his feet too submissively or ascribe to him too ecstatic praise. And here we discover the true foundation for the infallibility of the head of the Church. No Church holds this doctrine more firmly than the Eomish, yet wickedly ascribes to a fallible man what belongs only to the infalhble God. Christ has been constituted the head over all, supreme, infallible ; God's Vicegerent, Lawgiv- er, King and Judge. How skillfully and adroitly has he been counterfeited, whether it be Pope, Grand Lama, or the Prophet of Mecca. II. The Infallihiiity of the Church, and Absolution by the priest, are not so much errors as perverted truths, retained more distinctly by the Romish Church than by the Pro- testant. Truth is infalhble. The true Church is rooted and grounded on the truth, and just so far as she is a living demonstration of the truth, she is infaUible. The error lies in predicating of a corrupt or partially sancti- fied Church, what is true only of a perfect Church. And of the much abused dogma of absolution it is a delightful truth that the priest or the minister of Christ may de- clare sins forgiven to all who truly repent and beUeve. And no doubt it is the privilege of Christ's ministers to attain to that skilhulness in divine things, that discrimi- nation in " discerning spirits " that he may declare, not in his own name, but in that of his Master, that the sins of this or that man are forgiven. Apostohc faith shall bring back apostohc gifts and graces. III. The Eomish Communion has retained the only appropriate appellation of the Christian Church : the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Chuech. She claims what the true Church of Christ has a right to, catholicity, apos- tohcity, sanctity, unity, unchangeableness. As the body A RELIGIOUS CENTEE. 373 shall become like its infallible head it shall show forth these characteristics, beautiful as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem and terrible as an army with banners. What Eome claims to be, the true Church of Jesus Christ shall be. IV. Another interesting feature of the true rehgion which Rome has retained even more perfectly than Pro- testantism, is the idea of one great local Centre. This seems a dictate of natural religion — (or perhaps matter of very early revelation) — which has met a very ready response in the economy of nearly all forms of rehgion. Different systems of Paganism have their centres. The idolatrous Arabs, before the reform of Mohammed, had their Kaaba and the Black Stone, the Mohammedans thek Mecca, Brahminism its Benares. The Magians had their great Fire Temple, and the worshippers of the Grand Lama made the place of his throne the great rally- ing point for half the population of the globe. And more conspicuously than all. Borne is the grand centre of the Papacy. The Pope, St. Peter's, the Vatican, rehcs, saints, the Holy Virgin, severally and jointly, make up the great rallying-point of Bomanism. Mecca, the present centre of Islamism, was a great re- ligious centre generations before the world had ever heard of Mohammed. Perchance the Sabians worship- ped there. There was the famous Black Stone and the well Zemzem, about which for centuries bowed the con- gregated tribes of Arabia, and over which in time arose the celebrated Kaaba, the oldest fragment of the misty past. The same time- honored and temple- consecrated spot remained a great rehgious centre, remodelled and reconsecrated by Mohammed, towards which 180,000,000 of souls, stretching over two continents, from the Chinese Sea to the Atlantic, bowed their faces. Here, from the 374: THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. remotest regions of Islamism, multitudes annually con- gregate as to the great centre. Jerusalem was the centre of Judaism. Mount Zion, the Temple, the visible Shekinah, was the grand centre of the Jews' dispensation. All faces were turned towards the Holy City. Every Jew must go up to Jerusalem to worship. The fact is significant that the great Lawgiver should give so decided an importance to Jerusalem as a local centre of a dispensation which in an important sense he made a model dispensation. It would seem to indi- cate that the religious instincts which led all ancient sys- tems of religion to such a choice were innate and right, and worthy to be imitated. And we have here more than an intimation that that higher, hoher, more expan- sive and more diffusive dispensation df grace for which we look and which we believe hastens on apace, shall have its grand centre in kind like the Jerusalem and Mount Zion, and the Holy Temple of its illustrious prototype, but in degree vastly more splendid and worthy of the highly exalted and glorious dispensation it shall represent. The grand centre towards which all true reUgion tends, and about which it must finally revolve, is the Cross — the great centre of attraction ; some tending thither by affinity, some by repulsion — repelling from themselves all which will not in its nature be attracted towards the great centre ;, the attractive power of divine love ; the centre Christ, love personified. All that is true in re- ligion is susceptible of attraction. The true gold of piety — the gems of the moral firmament — are the sparkling stars, shedding their borrowed yet brilliant light, and re- volving about the SuN. Towards it all hearts look — about it the whole spiritual universe revolves — system about system — the less about the greater, but all about the Grand Centre. THE NEW JERUSALEM. 375 But we mean more than this. We mean that Chris- tianity when it shall have taken possession of the earth in its millennial glory, and our glorious King shall reign, shall have its visible centre ; that Jerusalem shall become the grand Metropolis of the new Kingdom ; that the Jews shall repossess the land which was given them for an everlasting inheritance ; that the Holy City shall be rebuilt in proportions and grandeur before un- known, and the Temple shall arise on Mount Zion in splendor such as Solomon never saw. What Jerusalem was to the Jews, this new Jerusalem shall be to the whole body of the faithful of every nation and tongue and kin- dred. Thither shall go up, at least by their representa- tives, all tribes and nations to Jerusalem to worship. We believe the simple announcement of Zechariah, that " all the families of the earth shall come up unto Jerusa- lem even from year to year, to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of Tabernacles." And we believe Ezekiel's glowing descriptions of the Holy City yet to arise, and of the magnificent Temple that shall be the glory thereof, and of the glory of the worship to be performed there ; and the beauty of holi- ness that shall dwell there, shall all be realized in this great world's centre and exposition of the ways and works, the honors and spoils, the virtues and graces of Christianity in the glory of its highest earthly perfec- tion. We may form some conception of what Jerusalem shall be in the earlier generations of that indefinitely long period called the Millennium, when the riches of the Gentiles shall flow into it and kings shall bring their gold and incense. Who can conceive the beauty and grandeur of the city of the Great King after the adorn- ments of but a single generation ? But add to this a thous- and years — perchance Myriads of years — and look again upon the Holy City, after that the silver and the gold, and 376 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. labor and the skill of a renovated world are laid at the feet of the Great King, and the possessors thereof vie with each other for the honor of adoring the place where his presence and glory more especially dwell. But we may not stop here. Not only shall the con- secrated nations and tribes, in the highly exalted condi- tion of the Millennial state of the Church, have their great centre of holy influences and more exalted privi- leges, where Emanuel more especially dwells, which we have called new Jerusalem, the city of the Great King, but there shall follow, after a short and most eventful era, (the last death-struggle of the Foe,) the future, final and everlasting reign of the saints upon the earth. " Such as be blessed of him, shall inherit the earth." "The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell therein forever." " The meek shall inherit the earth." And when the King shall appear in his consummated glory ; when in the midst of ten thousand times ten thousand angels, and of the countless multitudes of the redeemed from Adam to the last soul converted, he shall appear and take the Mediatorial throne, where shall be his footstool ? where his abode ; where the place of his throne ? Be it that his glorious presence blesses every soul, in the remotest regions of his wide domains, yet is there not a grand and glorious centre from which ema- nate, as rays from the sun, all light, all love, all benefi- cence ? Is there not a place of his throne — a place of his abode ? And as this Mediatorial kingdom is an earthly kingdom, has it not an earthly Metropolis ? In har- mony with this idea John saw the new Jerusalem come from heaven. It was the heavenly state come down to earth. It was the earthly Jerusalem made heavenly — a fit abode for angels — for the spirits of just men made perfect — a fit abode for the great King. Then most em- PELGEIMAGE A TEUE IDEA. 377 phatically shall Jerusalem be the glory of the whole earth. V. It may be inferred, from what has been said of centres, that pilgrimage is a true idea, the dictate of a high order of piety, most sadly perverted and made the source of untold evils by nearly all false rehgions, yet an idea preserved by them more correctly than by the true religion. The devout Jew turned his face towards Jeru- salem, the city of his God, and longed to set his foot on the sacred soil where, amidst all the symbols of his re- ligion, he might bow in the holy Temple. With a Hke yearning the deluded Moslem sets his face towards Mec- ca, and feels that a pilgrimage thither is worth the toil of a lifetime. The Hindoo looks to Benares or Jugger- naut as the great point of attraction and centre and radi- ating point of all his superstitious fancies. In the prac- tice itself there is couched an interesting truth, but when perverted in the service of superstition it is the source of unmitigated evil. There is scarcely a practice among the heathen that brings with it more suffering, de- moralization and death. While on the other hand, some of the highest, purest aspirations of the Christian soul might dictate a visit to the great central temple of the God he worships. As Jerusalem shall again become the great centre and metropolis of the true religion — as " the law shall go out of Zion and the word of God from Jeru- salem," all who honor God and love the ways of Zion, will long to bow down in the Great Temple with their kindred in Christ from the remotest regions of the earth, and to offer the sacrifice of praise upon the common altar. VI. Again we find buried beneath the grossest super- stitions and idolatrous regard, another truth. We mean a profound veneration for the Church and the priesthood. With Romanists the Church is everything and the priest supreme. There is no sacrifice so burdensome — no sin 378 THE rOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. SO heinous tliat the Papist will not commit, if satisfied that the Church requires it or the priest commands it. He would sooner violate every command in the decalogue than to eat meat on Friday. The " traditions of men " are everything, the commandments of God, if in conflict with these, are nothing. Now the error does not lie in too gTeat an honor paid to the Church and the priesthood. If the Church were what she should be, and what she shall be, a fac-simile — a ve- ritable demonstration of the truth as it is in Jesus, if the priesthood — the gospel-ministry, were perfect patterns of the One Great High Priest and Bishop of our souls, such homage, such veneration would be altogether suit- able and right. And in proportion as the Church and her priesthood approximate their destined and approach- ing perfection they shall be worthy the honor supposed. The error lies in according such honor to a Church noto- riously corrupt and idolatrous, and to a priesthood, which, when not restrained by extraneous powers, has been characterized by an avarice, ambition, Hcentiousness and cruelty, which has made them a reproach and a by- word the world over. The Church, when she shall have gathered within herself all the good in the world (which is really her own) and repelled all the bad (for which she can have no possible affinity) — when she shall be con- formed in Christ, and Christ formed in her, the hope of glory — when she shall put on her bridal attire and appear as the Lamb's wife, she then shall stand forth aU glorious and worthy of aU honor. VII. Another feature which the Papists have preserved better than Protestants is the Daily Seevice in the church. While the former have retained the form (we cannot say the spirit) the latter have scarcely retained it in any wise. Jewish synagogues, Heathen temples, and Moham- THE DAILY SEKYICE EEVIVED. 379 medau mosques, are daily open for worship. This is, as it should be, a dictate of natural religion — an instinct of the pious heart. While the practice in the spurious re- ligions referred to, does little but to keep up the form and to bind closer the bonds of superstition ; among the devout worshippers of the one true and holy God it would be a daily recognition of obligations for mercies past and present, a time for daily thanksgiving, prayer and praise, a demonstration to the world that our religion is not cas- sual, not occasional, not a mere form or profession, or the business merely of a Sunday, but that it is a practical, personal, every-day matter — the day begun with God — God publicly recognized as our Helper in all that day's affairs, our Guide and Shield, our Benefactor and Sa- viour. The Daily Service was a marked feature of the Apos- tolic and early Christian Church. They assembled daily not only for prayer and praise and reading the word of God, but for "the breaking of bread." And as the Christian Church shall return to her primitive simplicity and practice — to the form and spirit of the Apostolic Church, the Daily Service will no doubt be revived. This is the monition of every revival of religion, the dic- tate of every pious soul. We see an incipiency of this practice in the case of the " Protracted Meetings," and yet more distinctly in the Daily Prayer Meeting. For fifteen years that " upper chamber " in New York has held out the token of a return to the usages of the primi- tive Church. And the few other meetings of a like cha- racter that have existence in other cities of our land do but cherish the idea that the time is not distant when the children of our common Father shall assemble them- selves together to seek day by day their daily bread in the place of prayer. Till. The Papal communion has with much truth 380 THE FOOT-PHINTS OF SATAN. been called a Clmrcli of money. Certain it is that no confederation has so successfully drawn out the re- sources of its members, or so adroitly applied them to her own extension and aggrandizement. Money, we know, is a tremendous power, whether for good or for evil. And no Church has realized this power like the Bomish. She has secured in her membership, and used with a vengeance, what the Protestant Church has failed to se- cure, and what she sadly suffers for the lack of, viz. a systematic, universal benevolence. We should not in the case of Eome call it benevolence. We mean the giving, and the always giving, of the whole membership to sup- port the Church. The rich are made to give of their abundance, and the poor as surely give of their penury. The poorest servant-girl monthly, if not weekly, divides her scanty pittance with the Church. The secret of Home's enormous power Hes very much in the pecuniary treasures that have been put at her disposal. But for money her tyranny would have been harmless. With it she trampled kings under foot and spoiled kingdoms, and rioted in blood, and tyrannized over nations, .and be- came the mother of'harlots and all abominations. Most signally has the Devil here shown what money can do to give expansion and power, and aggrandizement to a great system of despotism, oppression and corruption. The world's history does not afford another such instance of the perversion of money. Yet what might Eome not have done for good, had her uncounted millions been devoted, not to the support and aggrandizement of a great and corrupt system of tyranny, founded on ignorance, but to the extension of that king- dom of love and hght and hberty and peace and purity, which the Blessed Immanuel came to establish. It would translate the Bible into every language on the face of the earth send a missionary into every city, village MONEY AND THE CHUECH. 381 and hamlet, supply a school for every youth, a library for every town, and a hospital for all the sick and infirm. It would, under God, estabhsh the reign of peace and-right- eousness on earth. What Eome has failed to do through the gross perver- sion of her means, the Protestant Church is bound to do. She must then call out her resources and apply them for good. It is, in the aspect we are now considering the work, a matter of money — of consecrated wealth. And here we scarcely need more than to borrow from an ene- my his system of bringing the silver and the gold into the treasury of the Lord. We must in the higher and hoHer sense of the term be a Church of money — of conse- crated wealth. Not till men shaU buy and sell and get gain for the Lord — not till men shall consecrate all they have to their divine Master, will the great and good work of raising the lowly, of 'enlightening the ignorant, of re- claiming the wandering and restoring to life them who are dead in trespasses and sins, be done. Never was a time when the cause of our divine Master so much needed money. Having stated some of the features which have been preserved more distinctly in the counterfeit than in the true Church — preserved in form, though sadly perverted in fact — we now turn to certain other resemblances and connections between the true and the false, which will further illustrate how largely false religions have drawn from the one true, revealed religion. Original revelation declared the one true God. Pagan- ism appeared as its corruption, substituting gods many and lords many. The second great period of revelation, announcing Immanuel, God with us, declares the one mediator between God and man, the one advocate and intercessor before the eternal Throne. Eome, in com- mon with false religions, substitutes false mediators. 382 THE FOOT-PBINTS OP SATAN. Both adopt the same visible signs of corruption, the worship of images. In tracing error back to a perver- sion of the truth, some one has said, " Idolatry originated in the perversion of the doctrine of the Godhead and the deification of their fellow-men in the natural aspirations of mankind, laboring under the effects of the Fall, after an approachable intercessor." The errors of the heathen then, were efforts of human nature " to feel and find God," as he is revealed in the Scriptures. The triune God, discernible in the multiplication of gods, and the incarnate God, in the deification of men and heroes. The idea of incarnation and atonement is met, though in a wretchedly perverted form, in most false religions — especially in the modern form known as Komanism, and in that very ancient, long-continued, far-reaching and still existing system known as Brahminism. There we meet ten well recognized incarnations, and atonements without number. That the fundumental notions of religion were at an early period after the Deluge carried abroad by the dis- persing tribes, is evident from the fact of their reappear- ance in all ancient systems of mythology. Though mixed, confused, and buried beneath such a mass of historic, geographical and fabulous elements, yet they have all retained a sufficient amount of truth to indicate the great fountain from which they are derived. Our subject finds so apt an illustration in the following paragraphs of Dr. Duff that we do not hesitate to trans- fer them to our pages. " Of all the systems of false religion ever fabricated by the perverse ingenuity of fallen man, Hindooism is surely the most stupendous — whether we consider the boundless extent of its range or the boundless multi- plicity of its component parts. Of all systems of false religion it is that which seems to embody the largest DR. DUPF ON SPURIOUS RELIGIONS. 383 amoiint and variety of semblances and counterfeits of di- vinely revealed facts and doctrines. In this respect it ap- pears to hold the same relation to the primitive patri- archal faith that Koman Catholicism does to the primi- tive apostolic faith. It is in fact the Popery of po'imi- tive patriarchal Christianity. All the terms and names expressive of the sublimest truths, originally revealed from heaven, it still retains. And under these it con- trives to inculcate diametrically opposite and contra- dictory errors. Its account of the creation and destruction of the universe — of the^ooc^s and conflagrations to which it is alternately subjected — oiihe divine origin, present sin- fulness and final destiny of the soul, together with many conjugate and subsidiary statements, must be regarded as embodying, under the corruptions of traditions and the exaggerations of fancy, some of the grandest truths ever communicated by the Almighty to man, whether before or after the Fall. Its nomenclature on the sub- ject of the unity and spirituality of the one great, supreme, self-existent Lord, is most copious, but when analyzed it presents us with nothing better than an infinite nega- tion. Its vocabulai'iy descriptive of the natural attri- butes of the Great Spirit superabounds to overflowing, but it evacuates every one of them of absolute perfection. " There is unchangeaUeness, though constantly subject, at the confluence of certain cycles of time, not merely to alteration of plans and purposes, but to change of es- sence. There is omnipotence, but bereft of creative energy it is limited to the power of education and fab- rication. There is omniscience, but it is restricted to the brief period of wakefulness, at the time of manifesting the Universe. As to the moral attributes, the chief deity has none at all." Again, there is no lack in false religions of a frag- mentary evidence of a belief in one only supreme God. 384 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. And there is sometliing in the gorgeous ceremonial and external forms of false religions, which afford glimpses of that beautiful form which came down from heaven. Indeed, there is much in the external of Eomanism which would seem to belong to the Church in her more ad- vanced condition. The spirit, the soul is gone, yet beautiful forms and a splendid ritual — the adornment of the dead — this external beauty, under happier auspices, may be- come the type of that awful and celestial beauty which pertains to the pure in heart and dwells ia its perfection only in the mind of God. Their Church edifices " pos- sess a wonderful charm for their fine proportions and an- tique air." Nor must we forget that amidst the corrup- tions of Home we may recognize some of the great and aU-transforming elements of Christianity — like stars mingled with clouds and gloom, yet stars still. Indeed, we meet, in one of the most offensive and dan- gerous features of this religion, a devotedness to the Church, a seK-denial — self-abnegation — a consecration of hfe, money, talent, everything — a oneness of idea and purpose, which ia itself is altogether worthy the imita- tion of every member of the Christian Church. We re- fer to the order of the Jesuits. They have the right idea, as an abstract principle, of what the disciple of Jesus should be. Every disciple of Loyola stands pledged, under sanction of the most solemn oath, that he will obey the behests of his Church, — that he will favor her inte- rest, defend her honor, contribute to her aggrandizement by a full and unwavering consecration of life to her ser- vice. Were it a service done for Christ and his Church with a pure heart and a good conscience, instead of a de- votion to Mary, Peter and an apostate Church — were the design of such consecration of Hfe to enlighten the ignorant, reclaim the vicious, preach the gospel and save the souls of the perishing — the devotion of the Jesuit DEVOTION OF JESUITS. 385 would be worthy of all praise and of the imitation of eve- ry one calling himself after the name of Christ. The Church of Rome has been greatly indebted for her extension and aggrandizement to the crafty and unscru- pulous, untiring devotion of this famous fraternity. It is the lack of such a devotion — the absence of a high and holv consecration to her Divine Master, that has done more than anything else to hinder the Christian Church in her onward march to the conquest of the world. That high order of consecration which nerved for her mission the Apostolic Church, and gave her a power which en- abled her to carry the good tidings of the gospel to the whole known world in about thirty years, and most con- vincingly to vindicate to the world her claims to be the One Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church, subsided, and the Church declined, and her power has been paralyzed. She had essayed to go up to the great battle for the world's conquest, and failed because shorn of her great strength. While on the other hand the Devil, by a most skillful monopoly, has secured for a bad cause what we have failed to secure for a good cause. Had the true Church been as devoted, as thoroughly consecrated, as indefati- gably active for truth and righteousness — for the exten- sion of the Church — the salvation of souls and the con- version of the world, as the misnamed order of Jesus has been to bind men in the chains of a gaUing despotism, and debased them by rites and superstitions stolen from Paganism, this apostate world would long since have been reclaimed from the dominion of sin, and aU tribes and nations been given to Christ for an everlasting king- dom. But we will not question the divine plan. As God has been pleased to surrender for a time to the god of the world the powers and resources and elements for progress 25 386 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. of this material world, that it may be seen what a wretched business he can make of it all, so in everything that relates to the spiritual interests of man, he is for a time allowed a predominating control. False religions are his strongholds. From this vantage ground he wields the mightiest weapons of his power. Ancient Pa- ganism served his purpose in the darker periods of the world. A christianized Paganism is made to arise, to serve the same purpose in an enlightened age of the world. This we think all history warrants us in assuming to be " the masterpiece of all the contrivances of the Devil against the kingdom of Christ — the Anti-Christ " — " a summation of rehgious error " — a compound or result of all previous systems. As Paganism was the counterfeit or the Popery of the old Patriarchal rehgion, and Mo- hammedanism the Popery or counterfeit of Judaism, Eomanism is the Popery or counterfeit of Christianity — perhaps the perfection and cUmas of that " mystery of iniquity," which the Arch-Fiend is allowed to practice among the sons of men. Though we have our appre- hensions that as Hght and knowledge and true piety in- creases, and the Church of Christ rises and expands and takes a higher level, his Satanic Majesty may feel the necessity of perpetrating upon the world his final grand counterfeit, which shall serve his purpose in the advanced and rapidly advancing condition of the world. Having now shown how largely false rehgions are in- debted to the one true revealed religion for many precious truths which have existed as gems amidst huge heaps of rubbish, we shall in the next chapter show how largely the Papacy, the now prevaihng counterfeit, has drawn from Paganism. In other words present the Papal sys- tem as a baptized and christianized Paganism — a new edition of the old book, got up to suit the times. xvm. FALSE RELIGIONS— ROMANISM, HOW INDEBTED TO PAGANISM — FESTIVALS — ^MONKEET — EOSARY — CHAEMS — IDOLATET — PUEGATOEY — NO BIBLE — PEESE- CUTION — ALL FEATUEES DEEIVED FEOM PAGANISM. In order to a full revelation of God's gracious pur- poses towards our world, it is needful, as hinted in our last chapter, that there should be a full revelation of sin. Sin being the malady and grace the remedy, the full efficacy of the latter can be revealed only in the complete revelation of the former. The Apostle cautioned the Thessalonians against an error they had somehow fallen into respecting the coming of Christ and the completion of the work of human redemption. They supposed the end of all things was at hand. Paul says no ; before the winding up of the great drama of human salvation, scenes of heretofore unparalleled interest are yet to transpire. Before the Lord Jesus Christ shall come and gather in his elect and finish the mediatorial work, sin must do its perfect work— must act itseK out — show itself -^exhibit its strength, its maturity, its malignity, its bit- ter fruits — must first show wh-it it can do in all the varied 388 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. circumstances and relations in life — how evil and bitter a tiling it is — and how sure it is to meet the frown and curse of Heaven. Sin must be revealed — :and must show itseK the son of perdition — ^the great destroyer, and sure to be destroyed. It is befitting in the great scheme — it is needful that sin should have its perfect development. For this pur- pose sin was admitted into the world, and its chief author and agent, the Devil, is allowed to become, by usurpation, the god of this world. This world should first become the servant of sin, that it might be seen what a wretched world sin could make of it. And then should it become the servant of God and of righteousness that it might appear how beautiful a world it shaU be when its rightful owner shall restore it to his favor. Sin shall first have its day. Sin shall reign. But sin shall come to an end and righteousness shall enjoy an everlasting dominion. "We propose to continue our notices of the usurpations of sin, and of him that has the power of sin, by adducing a few instances in which the Papacy is largely indebted to Paganism. And this to an extent that makes its sys- tem decidedly more Pagan than Christian. In doing this we hope again to make it appear what a cunningly devised scheme this system is, and what a tremendous power for evil. It might seem to suffice to speak only of the general analogies of the Papacy and Paganism. We may take Hindooism as a specimen. The Christian resident in India is the daily witness of rites, superstitions and cer- emonies practiced by Hindoos which are known to have been theirs from time immemorial yet which differ only in name from the rehgious observances in Rome. A writer who from personal observation knew well of what he af- firms, says," I need not stop to point out to the intelligent reader the analogy which here appears, (he is speaking THE PAPACY Amt PAGANISM. 389 of services for the dead,) and the many striking ana- logies which will be seen between Hindooism and Po- pery. The Heathenism of the Papacy is a subject which deserves vastly more attention in the controversy with Bomanists than it has heretofore received. In India we see not only the Idolatry of Popery itself, which is everywhere manifest, but we see its heathenism, in its conformity to Hindoo rites, usages and superstitions." Along the whole line of existence and history of Home Papal we meet the unmistakable footprints of Eome Pagan. Modern Komanism is strangely grafted on Pa- gan Romanism. We meet the pillar of Trajan sur- mounted by an image of St. Peter — that of Antoninus Pius by a statue of St. Paul — a fit whim of old Eome and new — new wine in old bottles. Many a hoary ruin of an old heathen temple is transformed into a Christian church. Jupiter Capitohnus — the old statue of this heathen god, has been lustrated by the Popes and conse- crated into a statue of St. Peter. The Pope is none other than the Pontifex Maximus of the old Eoman my- thology. Old Eoman temples of worship are modem Christian churches — nuns were once vestal virgins — the sprinkhng of holy water but a perpetuation of the lustra- tion of the old Eoman priests. The Pantheon, the place of all gods, becomes in the new order of Eomanism the place of all saints. And St. Peter, as he towers aloft in the dizzy height assigned to him, becomes the Jupiter of the Capitol. The worship of gods and heroes has simply given place to the worship of angels and saints, and the goddess of the old Eomans has yielded to the virgin, or the goddess of the modem Eomans. A traveller in Italy visits the church of St. Paul Major in Naples, and says of it : " This is really the old temple of Castor and Pollux transformed into a church. There stand the old pillars of the heathen temple. Before the 33D THE rOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. door is tlie statue of a heathen god converted into a sta- tue of St. Paul. On either side of the great door and over it are left remaining the pictures of the heathen priests offering sacrifices, and all over the interior of the building are the representations of heathen mythology, mixed and mingled up with the representations of the myths and superstitions of Popery. Priests in their robes were mumbling mass at its altars, and to a person at all ac- quainted with heathen mythology, with Eoman antiqui- ties, and with the way and manner of the worship of the old Itahans, the conception on entering this church would be neither violent nor imnatural that he was in a heathen temple, whose altars were surrounded by heathen priests, upon which they were offering their unmeaning sacri- fices."* Were an old worshipper of Castor and Pollux to rise from the Catacombs and enter the church of St. Paul Major at Naples, he would feel that although great revo- lutions had taken place in other things, his old temple and its worship were yet mainly the same. There at least were the holy water, the burning candles and the smoking incense, just as he had left them. These last are among the things " received," as Bishop England concedes, "from the East,'' and adapted and baptized into the Komish succession. The grave bishop probably conceded more than he reaUy intended, when he said, " As our religion is received from the East, most of our an- cient customs are of Eastern origin^ Eomish festivals and holy days are the natural-born offspring of the old heathen festivals. The character and the place occupied by the one is almost entirely identical with the other. The name only is changed. This identity in essence and character will appear * Eomanism at Home. Kirwan's letters to Chief Justice Taney. PAPAL FESTIVALS AND HOLT DATS. 391 the more obvious if we advert for a moment to the man- ner in which these modern, nominally Christian festivals are observed. Their heathen birthright will at once be betrayed. These festivals have no religious character — nothing that addresses itself to the heart and conscience, and makes the votary feel he has a God to serve and a soul to save. At the festival of the resurrection, (which we may take as a single illustration,) preachers are wont to entertain their hearers with anything which might ex- cite laughter. One relates the grossest indecencies ; an- other recounts the tricks of St. Peter ; others, how adroit- ly, at an inn, he cheated the host and avoided paying his bill. A Romish festival, everybody too well knows, is but a holy day — a gala day. No matter how serious be the occasion which is nominally celebrated, it is a day of mirth and gay festivities. It may be in commemoration of the birth, death or resurrection of Christ, or descent of the Holy Spirit, or of any other great and deeply-in- teresting event in the history of the Church — it is all the same, the holy day and its festival stirs up no pious emo- tions, no grateful aspirations, no sense of true worship. All is form if not frivohty. Were I to relate to a com- pany of ignorant papists, the frivolous stories retailed by Hindoo priests and medicants concerning their holy days and their deities — the amours of their gods and the silly tricks of Vishnu among the cowherds — how he proved his divinity by making himself invisible that he might steal their milk unperceived, and other naughty tricks which he played with the young maidens of the field as they innocently tended their fathers' flocks — should I re- late these things with the assurance that the parties were Eomish priests and Eomanists, my hearers would have no scruple to pass it all as good Eomanism. Christmas is evidently a festival borrowed from the old 392 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. Eoman Saturnalia. And the mode of its observance in a real Papal country is as void of all religious seriousness or of thoughts or observances appropriate to the day that it professedly commemorates, (the glorious advent into our world of our Blessed Saviour,) as is the grossly fes- tive observance of the old Pagan festival whose legitimate successor it is. But we have a yet more melancholy perversion in re- lation to the Sabbath. Here our enemy has achieved one of his saddest victories. The Sabbath is one of the strongholds of our religion. Demohsh this and the enemy may come in and prowl at will. Bome has made the Sabbath the veriest holiday in the calendar. Little is left to entitle it to the epithet of sacred. The record of a single traveller in Prance furnishes a befitting commentary on this sad perversion. Writing from Paris, where he was an eye-witness of the things whereof he affirms, he says : " On the Sabbath day, as in the ancient pagan festival, the devotee of superstition desires to show forth his glad- ness of heart. How does he do it ? Just as in the Sa- turnalia or Lupercaha. Hence the Sabbath day is the fete day of the week. Nearly aU the public places of ex- hibition are closed on one day in the week, and that day is Monday. A cause is that the porters, etc., have been entirely exhausted by the exertions and labors of the Sabbath, when tens of thousands at times visit them. One or two hundred thousand, on a Sabbath of Septem- ber last, stood within the park of Yersailles to witness the great dragons of the Pountain pour forth their streams of water. All the arrangements of the week point to that as the grand hoHday. Have the theatres any particular star to introduce to the pubHc ? a Sabbath night is selected. Have the restaurants or coffee-houses any new discovery in the science of cookery to make ROME AND THE SABBATH. 393 known ? the Sabbath is selected. Have the artisans need of a day of rest in the seven ? Monday is selected, since the Lord's day was required for their exhausting dissipa- tion. Saturday is, invariably among the lower classes, ' selected as their marriage day, siace they may have un- restrained hberty to feast and frohc on the Lord's day. Balls are, for the same reason, given on Saturday night, that the Sabbath may be employed in carrying out their plans and pleasures. " Are the National Guards to be reviewed, 100,000 of whom are stationed this hour in and around Paris, to en- able the rulers to rule well this happy country ? the said Sabbath is selected. Are railways to be opened, pubhc works to be commenced, horse-races to come off? the day of the Lord is chosen. At least a dozen times the mechanic and shopman have offered to send home things on the Lord's day. If a Mass is attended in the morn- ing, the rest of the day is clear gain, and can be spent as the devotee desires." Monks, nuns and religious orders trace back their origin to the stagnant pool. They are of heathen pa- rentage. Li reading the accounts of pagan monkery and asceticism in Hindostan — how at some periods whole ar- mies of sturdy beggars, amounting sometimes to ten or twelve thousand, would lay under contribution whole villages — we scarcely know whether we are on Pagan or Papal ground. " When this army of robust saints direct their march to any temple, the men of the province through which their road Hes, very often fly before them, notwithstanding the sanctified character of the Fakeers. But the women are in general more resolute, and not only remain in their dweUings, but apply frequently for the prayers of these holy persons, which are found to be most effectual in case of sterility. When a Pakeer is at prayers with the lady of the house he leaves either his 394 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. slipper or his staff at the door, which, if seen by the hus band, effectually prevents him from disturbing their devotion. Should he be so unfortunate as not to mind these signals, a sound drubbing is the inevitable conse- quence of his intrusion." Is the reader here reminded of anything in the rehgion of Rome hke this ? If not, let us revert to anothei fea- ture of Hindooism and see if we can discover the likeness. Every principal temple in India has attached to it not only as large a number of priests, monks and mendicants as its revenue will support, but a corresponding corps of young women known in religious parlance as loives of tlie gods, but in common parlance as dancing girls or prosti- tutes. In a single temple (that of Jejury, 24: miles south of Ahmednugger) there were at one period 250 of these wives of the gods. Mothers devote their daughters to the god from their infancy, and when the girls arrive at a marriageable age they are wedded to the deity, and afterwards reside at the temple and live for the god, and may not marry a mortal. What say you, votaries of Eome — ^have not these an- cient Pagans anticipated you in the idea of nunneries and convents ? Nor have you in your other rehgious orders and fraternities done more than to revive, perpetuate, modify and accommodate to times and places, and bapr tize with Christian names, kindred orders of Eome pagan progenitors. Pilgrimages, penances, bodHy inflictions aie but the legitimate offspring of their pagan prototypes. Here I may quote Bemier, than whom few writers on India are more worthy of credit. His description of yo- gees is much to the Hfe, and possesses the merit of exhi- biting the manners of this class of people as they were two centuries ago, and as they now are. He met asceti- cism in India in very much the same form in which it has so luxuriantly flourished on papal ground. Not only was CONTENTS, BEADS, EOSAEY. 395 the conntiy cursed with innumerable bands of lazy worthless mendicants and devotees of every caste and kind, but institutions existed not unhke convents and nunneries. He says, " Among the infinity and great di- versity of devotees in India, there are numbers who in- habit a kind of convent, in which there are superiors, and where they make vows of chastity, poverty and obe- dience, and who live so strange a life that I know not whether you will believe it. These are commonly distin- guished by the appellation of yogees, a great number of whom are to be seen parading about, or sitting almost naked, or lying down night and day on ashes, and gene- rally under the branches of large trees." The use of beads — the rosary — amulets and charms, date their origin and use back to a period centuries and centuries anterior to their adoption by the Papacy. Be- fore Eome was known — either pagan or papal — the old idolaters of Asia sat counting their beads, wearing their amulets and plying their charms. The Hindoos, the Chinese, the worshippers of the Grand Lama and the fol- lowers of the false Prophet, aU use these tokens of super- stition. The Thibetians use beads, wear the mitre, use the holy water, offer prayers, alms and sacrifices for the dead, have their convents, nuns, priests and monks. So complete is the resemblance that when one of the first Bomish missionaries penetrated Thibet, he came to the conclusion (and very correctly we think) that the Devil had set up there an imitation of the rites of the CathoHc Church, in order the more effectually to destroy the souls of men. The conclusion should rather be that the priest here discovered the footprints of the Devil in similar rites and appendages of his own Church. " The Hindoos use the rosary in the same way as the Mohammedans and Papists do. The custom is doubtless brought from the East. Nearly every devotee there car- 396 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. ries a string of beads. They are not only carried in the hand and used as a rosary, but are worn on the arms, the neck, and the body as amulets. I have seen devotees nearly covered with strings of beads. The Hindoo rosa- ry consists of a hundred and eight beads, the Mohamme- dan of a hundred and one."* " Repeating the name of some one of the gods is a very common mode of worship. To assist in this exercise a string of beads, pearls or berries is used. The worship- per, by removing one of these every time he repeats the name, is enabled easily to reckon his prayers and know when he has repeated the intended number of repeti- tions. Some people spend hours in this practice." This is the very common ceremony among the Hindoos called Jupu, by which they fancy they may obtain whatever they desire. And how like the devotees of Paganism are the Papists in their use of charms and amulets. " Amulets," contin- ues the writer, " are almost universally worn by the Hin- doos for the preventing or the curing of diseases, or the driving off of evil spirits. They are made of different materials and are worn about the arm, the neck or the body. Some consist of a single thread, others are made of leather and set with small sheEs." Does not the Eo- mish priest in India, too, discover that the Devil has set up another imitation of the rites (rights) of his Church ? Eomanism in India, diffused as it extensively is over the whole country, does not offer the sHghtest rebuke to the grossest superstitions of the country. Though modified in some of its forms, and names changed to suit the Christian nomenclature, it is in spirit and practice as superstitious and idolatrous as the rehgions of the land. The image of the Yirgin, as also the images of saints, is • Christian Brahminism, vol. ii., p. 88, 90. THE MUNTEU. 397 borne througli the streets, gorgeously apparelled and seat- ed beneath a gHttering canopy, followed by an army of priests and of the people, just as we see a procession of Hiudoo priests and people parading through the streets their goddess. And so we may say of their charms, in- cantations, and all their catalogue of superstitions. We alluded to holy water, incense and burning candles as among the things wherein Rome may claim a heredi- tary identity with oriental Paganism. Lights were kept perpetually burning on the Pagan altars in Rome by the vestal virgins. And in more ancient heathen temples, lamps and candles were ever burning on the altars and before the statues of their deities. Incense, too, was al- ways offered to the gods from Pagan altars, and as ap- pears from the sculpture and pictures extant, very much in the manner in which it is now offered in Romish churches — by a boy in a white robe with a censer in his hand. And the use of holy water is purely a heathen custom, transferred from heathenism into the Romish Church for the purpose of facilitating the passing over of the heathen from Paganism to Papacy. What at first was a matter of pohcy became soon a matter of faith, and now a font of holy water is of far more importance to the complete finish of a Romish church than a Bible. As an example of this we may refer to the wonder- working charm called the Muntru. This is a mystic verse or incantation, the repetition of which is declared to be attended with the most wonderful effects. The su- perstitions and consequent ceremonies connected with the Muntru are prominent features in Hindoo mythology. None but Brahmins and the highest order of the people are allowed to repeat it. Here Hes the power of the priest. All things are subject to the Muntru. The gods cannot resist it. It is the essence of the Vedas, the united pow- 398 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. er of Bralima, Vishnu, and Shiva. It confers all sanc- tity, pardons all sin, secures all good, temporal and spiri- tual, and procures everlasting blessedness in the world to come. It possesses the wonderful charm of interchang- ing good for evil, truth for falsehood, light for darkness, and of confirming such perversions by the most holy sanction. Indeed there is nothing so difficult, so silly, so absurd that it may not be achieved by this extraordi- nary Muntru. v But have we not all this, in spirit and essence, repre- sented in the magic word of the Romish priest ? to say nothing of the scarcely less magic power of Ave Marias and Paternosters. A word from the priest absolves from sin, makes wrong right, darkness light, falsehood truth. We find the whole reproduced, modernized, Bomanized, but not attenuated or essentially changed, in modern Bomanism. The worship of canonized Saints and of Angels is again but obviously a relic of the old idolatry. " Honors paid to rotten hones" says Virgilantius, " and the dust of saints and martyrs, by adoring, kissing and wrapping them up in silk and vessels of gold, and lighting up waxen candles before them after the manner of the heathen, were the ensigns of idolatry." The chief deity among the Bomans of the present day is undoubtedly the Madonna or Virgin Mary ; no more or less than a canonized saint. Indeed, so prominent a place does the worship of this, their goddess, command in the pantheon of the modern Bomans, that we shall be doing no injustice to the whole system if we give it the title of Madonnaism. Bead the legends of the Virgin, (which indeed have more authority with the Papists than the gospels,) or go into their galleries of art or into the churches of Italy and you find the Madonna, exalted and glorified, by the so-called church, above all the lords and gods there wor- EOME pagan: bome papal. 399 shipped. "It is not surprising, then," as a traveller in Italy well says, " that the Madonna, this factitious Virgin Mary, a divinity, a goddess, an object of worship, and, according to Protestant ideas, of idolatrous wor- ship, inasmuch as adoration only belongs to God — should be the trump card of the Catholic Church. " The image of the Eternal Father," says an acute traveller in Italy, " indeed, is the less common in Italian Churches, only because, I apprehend, he is less the object of worship. The Virgin is, beyond all compari- son, the most adored. Particular saints, in particlar places, may indeed divide with her the general homage, but they enjoy at best only a local and sometimes a transient popularity ; whereas the worship of the Virgin is universal in all places and by all people, not only, as I fancied before I entered Italy, by females, who might think her, on account of her sex, their most appropriate and zealous intercessor, but equally by men, and by priests as well as laymen. After the Virgin, some of the saints seem to be the most worshipped, then our Saviour, and lastly God. Shocking as this may appear, it is too true. I am sure I do not exaggerate, when I say that throughout Italy, Spain, Portugal, and in every country where the Catholic is the exclusive religion of the peo- ple, for one knee bent to God, thousands are bowed before the shrines of the Virgin and the saints." The worship of Brahma in India is called Brah- minism, and that of the Grand Lama in Thibet, Lamaism ; so we may, with the same propriety, denom- inate the worship of the Virgin Madonnaism. But the Virgin, though the chief deity, is but one of a thousand of the hero-gods of Eome. Another mark of the Beast which claims paternity in the old heathen mythologies, is the doctrine of Purgatory. The true origin of this doctrine is unquestionably from 400 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. the rites of heathenism. For, that the ancient heathen believed in such, and performed rites for the dead, " to facilitate their progress after death to the fair Elysian fields," is undeniable. Yirgil describes the rites of the funeral pile as necessary to the repose of the departed spirit. He introduces the ghost of Palinurus as com- plaining of the neglect of his friends in this regard. Plato divided the condition of departed spirits into three states, viz., those who had purified themselves with philosophy and excelled in morality of life ; those ex- ceedingly wicked and incapable of cure ; and a middle sort, who, though they had sinned, had yet repented, and seemed to be in a curable condition. The first would enjoy eternal feUcity in the islands of the blessed. The second were at death thrown headlong into hell, to be tormented forever. The third class went down like- wise to hell, to be purified and absolved by their tor- ments, but through the interposition of their friends would be delivered, and attain to honor and happiness. The Papists, in close imitation of this, make four states or conditions of the dead. The first or lowest is Hell, the place of the damned. The second is Purgato- ry. The third the residence of infants who died with- out baptism. The fourth is Limbo, the abode of the pious who departed this life before the birth of Christ. As among the ancient Pagans, so among the Papists, there was no end of the offerings and labors, the rites and sacrifices for the repose of the dead, and their final restoration to the abodes of the blessed. After the manner of the heathen, the priests diligently inculcate the idea that sufferers in Purgatory may receive essen- tial relief from their friends on earth — that the duration of their pains may be shortened by the masses, prayers, alms and other works of piety, called the suffrages of the faithful. But above all, by masses offered by the PRAYERS FOR THE DECEASED. 401 priest. No pains are spared by the priest to keep this subject before the people. It is to the Eromish, as it is kO the Pagan priests, a very profitable subject. Im- mense sums are extorted from the people for prayers and masses for the dead. But we need not resort to antiquity. Existing systems of Paganism are full of purgatorial purifications. The famous ShradJi of the Hindoos is but a fair prototype of what we meet this day in Rome. If this ceremony be performed for a rich man, all the priests and people of caste for many miles around are invited, prayers are of- fered for the deceased, expensive offerings made, rich presents to the Brahmins, a most magnificent display of equipage, clothing and all sorts of paraphernaha, and oiferings of flowers and food for the dead, and the most luxurious feasting for the living. Gunga-Govindu Sing- hu, a person of the writer caste and head-servant to Warren Hastings, is said to have expended, at his moth- er's shradh, twelve lacs of rupees. A lac is a hundred thousand rupees, and a rupee about half a dollar. And near the same time a native Kajah expended ten lacs for the benefit of his deceased mother. Much of this is ex- pended in rich offerings, dresses, illuminations and feasts. Many persons reduce themselves to beggary for life to se- cure the name of making a great shradh. It is not un- usual for a man to sell his house, stock, and all he has, to defray the expense of this ceremony. Many borrow large sums which they can never pay, and afterwards go to jail. If a man is inchned to neglect the shradh, he is sure to encounter the vehement admonition of his priestf who feels a deep interest that there be no delinquency here. The services and ceremonies connected with the shradh, like the prayers, masses and offerings for the deliverance of the souls of the departed by the Romish priesthood, 26 432 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. are rich fields on wliicli priestly avarice riots most luxu- riantly. The unceasing cry is money, money for the be- nefit of your dead relations. And who, when appealed to amidst associations so tender, could withhold his gene- rous aid? Who would not open wide his hands and liberally pour out his treasures to smooth the anguish of a father or mother or some dear relative who is suffering purgatorial fires ? Whether the Romans have really improved on the old Asiatic idea of Purgatory is quite questionable. They have modified it and changed names and called it Christ- ian, but have abated none of its heathenism. ■_.'#yi^/ FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN— AS SEEN' IN THE AD USE OF THE BIBLE. '' Let the Public School System go where it came from — the devil.'" — Iiomaii Catholic Freeman's Journal. "We ask that the Public Schools be cleansed from this peace-destroying monstrosity — Bible Reading." — Brsuop Lynch, of New Orleans, Roman Catholic. "It will be a glorious day for Catholics in this country when our School System will be shivered to pieces.'' — Cincinnati Rovian Catholic Telegraph. XIX. FALSE RELIGIONS— EOMANISM. (continued. ) HOW FURTHER INDEBTED TO, OR RESEMBLING PAGANISM — A NON-TEACHING PRIESTHOOD — NO BIBLE — ^A PERSECUT- ING CHURCH — IDOLATRIES — ALL HAYE A COMMON PATER- NITY IN PAGANISM — IS THE PAPACY THE FINAL FORM OP THE GREAT APOSTASY, OR LOOK WE FOR ANOTHER? We shall present some jfurther illustrations of the rela- tionship with iElome Papal with Eome Pagan, and how largely the Papacy is indebted to other systems of an- cient Paganism. Eomanism resembles Paganism in not having a teaching priesthood. Here we meet a good line of demarkation between a true and a false rehgion. In proportion as a religion is sensuous and corrupt, it rejects instruction, and satisfies itself with ritual observances, penances, and bodily exercises. Forms of Christianity may be judged of by this rule. Departures from the purity and simphcity of the gospel may first be detected in a diminished de- mand and relish for pure spiritual teaching on the one hand, and on the other an increased dependence on forms 404: THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. and rites. Sucli a Church naturally seek a clergy who will magnify the altar at the expense of the pulpit. Their teachings become less abundant and less direct in pro- portion as the Kfe of godliness evaporates in mere forms. Sheer Paganism has no vitality. It is all form, and consequently we find it without any teaching priesthood. It is no part of the priest's duty to teach the people. His official duties all pertain to the ritual. And if we al- low the eye but a cursory survey of all religions, from the negation of Paganism up to the simplest, purest form of Christianity, we shall find just so much of a teaching Clergy as we find truth and godliness as a basis of re- ligion. What by this standard are we then to judge of Roman- ism ? Does she, in the duties she imposes on her clergy, more resemble Christianity or Paganism ? Is she a Pa- gan or a Christian Church ? Does she translate, circulate and teach the Bible like a Christian Church ? Does she encourage intelligence among her people ? If she has a teaching priesthood, what mean those prayers and servi- ces in an unknown tongue ? Give Home an open Bible and a teaching ministry and she would be Home no more. Hence, We offer as an other point of resemblance and family affinity Rome's prohibition of the Bible to the mass of her people. In this she has followed in the footsteps of all spurious reKgions whose Sacred Books are essentially proscribed to the people. It is claimed that the Bible is not prohibited to the laity. This may be partially true in theory, but es- sentially untrue in fact. We are concerned only with the fact. Does Rome or does she not by every possible means discourage the circulation of the Bible and practi- cally secure its prohibition ? We need not go beyond the present for a reply. PKOHIBITION OF BIBLE. 405 An important feature in the struggle now going on in Italy, and especially in Rome, is the bitter and determin- ed hostility of the Pope to the Bible. There is no enemy so much to be dreaded as the Bible. The Pope and the cardinals, it would seem, cannot feel safe nor sleep sound 0 long as the Bible is allowed to remain in secret places. The Pope a short time since, in a cuxular to the archbishop and bishops of Italy, manifested his hatred towards the circulation of the Bible in these terms : " Be careful to preserve the people not only from the reading of the papers, but from reading the Bible, which the enemies of the Chiu'ch and human society, availing themselves of the aid of Bible societies, are not ashamed to circulate, and enjoin upon the faithful to shun with horror the reading of such deadly poison — inspiring them at the same time with veneration for the holy see of St. Peter." Every pope for the last twenty years (to go no further back) has not failed to reiterate Eome's abhorrence of the Bible and pronounce her anathemas on its circulation. Pope Pius the Ninth proclaims to the world that Bible societies are insidious and pernicious institutions. Gre- gory XVL, his predecessor, denounced it in terms yet more severe. Eome both fears and hates the Bible. Pope Pius YII., in the year 1816, says of the British and Foreign Bible Society, " It is a crafty device by which the very foundations of religion (i. e. Popery) are undermined. A pestilence and defilement of the faith most dangerous to souls." Leo XII. in 1824, speaking of the institution says, " it steals with effrontery through the world, condemning the traditions of the holy fathers, and, contrary to the well-known Council of Trent, labors with aU its might, and by every means, to translate or rather to pervert the Holy Bible into the vulgar lan- guages of the nations." i06 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. In 1553, a number of bishops convened at Bologna, in Spain, to give Pope Julius III. counsel as to the best means of sustaining the Eoman Church against the Re- formation. The following is their language respecting the Scriptures : " Finally, it is necessary that you watch and labor, by all means in your power, that as small a portion as possible of the gospel (above aU in the vulgar tongue) be read in the coimtries subject to our rule. It is this book, after all, that, more than any other, has raised against us these troubles and these tempests, (re- ferring to the excitement of the Reformation), which have brought us to the brink of ruin." The Council of Trent, two years after this, promulgat- ed her famous, or rather infamous rules against prohibit- ed books, aimed chiefly at the Bible. The truth is, they are afraid to put the Bible in any shape into the hands of the people, lest it should disclose secret abominations. Hence they hedge its circulation about with so many difficulties that the seeming approbation which they some- times give when policy compels, amounts practically to nothing. The following paragraphs, taken from an article in the " Christian World" entitled, " Hostility of the Eomish Church to Protestant versions of the Bible, a mere pre- tence," are so apposite to our subject, we shall do the reader a favor by transferring them to our pages. " There are some who think that the opposition of the Church of Home to the Bible is not owing to any ob- jection on their part to the book itself, but to the Pro- testant versions of it. But the fact is, the hatred of this fallen Church goes farther, and hes deeper. BeHeving a he, she hates the book which exposes her falsehoods and overthrows her claims. Hence the conflict between the Papacy and the Bible — hence aU the obloquy heaped on the holy volume — hence all the Bible-burnings and cruel . BOmSH OPPOSITION TO BIBLE. 407 imprisonmeiit and slaughter of those who have had the courage to read the Book of God. The objection to the Protestant version is a mere pretence, made use of in Protestant countries to bhnd the people, and hide from view the real issue. Kome hates the Bible in any and every form. She taught the people of Ireland to call the Protestant Bible the Devil's Book, and she has often burn- ed versions and editions pubhshed with the authority of the Pope. The Bibles burned at Bogota a few months ago were Boman Catholic versions. There is enough in the Douay, or any other Boman translation of the Bible, to open the eyes of the people, and overthrow the whole system of the Papacy. All the editions ever published contain these words : " For there is one God and one mediator between God and men^ the man Christ Jesus," (1 Timothy, ii., 5,) and this text is sufficient to destroy the worship of the Vii'gin Mary, and to do away with the mediation of saints and angels. " The Beformation, which owes its origin to the Bible, and the spread of Protestantism, which is due to God's blessing on the word of life, have aroused the hostility of Eome to the Holy Scriptures, and led to divers decrees, anathemas and bulls against their circulation. Before the time of Luther many valuable editions of the Bible were published under the auspices of the Eoman Church, but since the 16th century very httle has been done by popes or prelates to pubHsh and illustrate the Word of God. " Bomanists have often acknowledged that the Bible was against them, and that their Church could find no support from Holy Scripture. " At the Diet of Augsburg, (A. D. 1530,) as the Bishop of Mentz was looking over the Bible, one of. his counsel- lors said to him : " What does your Electoral Grace make of this book ?" to which he replied : " I know not 4:08 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. what to make of it, save thataU that I find in it is against us" At the same diet, Duke William of Bavaria, who was strongly opposed to the Reformers, asked Dr. Eck : " Cannot we refute these opinions by the Holy Scrip- tures ?" " No," said he, " but by the Fathers." The Bishop of Mentz then said : " The Lutherans show us their belief in Scripture, and we ours out of Scripture." An Augustin monk, when he saw Luther reading the Bible, said to him : " Ah, brother Martin, what is there in the Bible ? It is better to read the ancient doctors, who have sucked the honey of the truth. Tlie Bible is the cause of all our troubles."* " The Church of Bome well knows that no person of common candor and understanding can read the Bible, and not discover a strange discrepancy between its teach- ings and the doctrines of the Papacy. She has, therefore, done all in her power to hinder the study of the Word of God, in direct opposition to the command of our Lord, to " search the Scriptures." " While the Council of Trent declared the Latin Yul- gate to be authentic in all public discussions, and did not absolutely forbid translations into the vernacular tongue, it prescribed such conditions and regulations as were cal- culated to limit and prevent the use of them. This Council also permitted the reading of the Bible ; but with such restrictions that the grant amounts to a virtual pro- hibition. " The fourth rule concerning prohibited books, which was approved by Pope Pius IV., begins in these words : * Inasmuch as it is manifest from experience, that if the Holy Bible, translated into the vulgar tongue, be indis- criminately allowed to every one, the temerity of men will cause more evil than good to arise from it ; it is, on * Michelet's Life of Luther, pp. 260, 261. BIBLE NO AUTHOEITT. 409 this point referred to the judgment of the bishops or in- quisitors, who may, by the advice of the priest or con- fessor, permit the reading of the Bible, translated into the vulgar tongue by Catholic authors, to those persons whose faith and piety they apprehend will be augmented, and not injured by it ; and this permission they must have in writing.' " The design of this rule was not to encourage, but ra- ther to discourage and prevent the reading of the sacred volume. In harmony with this intention, Popish writers have given such representations of the Bible as were adapted to repress all desires and attempts to become acquainted with its saving truths. They have alleged that the Scriptures are very obscure ; and indeed so un- intelligible that they cannot be understood without the interpretation of the Church. They have affirmed that the Bible has 710 authority in itself ; and were it not for the au- thority of the Church it would not he more credible than ^sop's fables ; that it cannot make men wise unto salva- tion, and is calculated rather to lead them astray, and to be the cause of all manner of errors and heresies. " When we consider that the Church of Eome claims to have a religion based on divine revelation, her efforts and arguments to prevent the reading and circulation of the Bible are so absurd, that they would never have been thought of, if there had not been some sinister ends to accomplish. " No man is displeased that others should enjoy the light of the sun, unless he is engaged in some design which it is his interest that others should not see ; and in this case, he would wish the gloom of midnight to sit down upon the earth, that he might practice his nefarious deeds with impunity. It is an interest con_ trary to the Scriptures which has impelled the Church of Eome to exert her power to hinder the circulation." This well confii-ms the conclusion of a grave Eomish 410 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. writer who says, " It is manifest by experience that if the use of the Bible be permitted in the vulgar tongue, more evil than profit will result. It is for this reason the Bible is prohibited with aU its parts, whether printed or written, in whatsoever vulgar language — also all summaries and abridgments." The following incident is beheved to be no more than a fair example of the hatred of the Bomish priest to the Bible, and of the demonstration of his aversion when circumstances will allow. A priest was called to perform extreme unction for a man in Ceylon, who was near his end. On entering the house he saw a book on the shelf, and inquired what it was. When told it was a New Tes- stament, he took it down, tore it in pieces, and trampled it under his feet. As a shrewd writer on Papacy well says, " They are afraid to put the Bible, in any shape, into the hands of the people, lest it should disclose their secret abomina- tions." It is not the Protestant translation that is feared, but the Bible. As touching the Bible and its general use we commend our Boman Catholic friends to the opinion and practice of the great St. Patrick of Ireland. The record says, " He was a great reader and lover of the Bible. He left only two short compositions, but in them he makes forty- three distinct quotations from the Holy Scriptures, and throughout his writings his phraseology is scriptural, showing that the Bible was his daily companion for pe- rusal and meditation. The Papacy has again identified herself with systems of paganism, in the fact that she is a persecuting Church. Pagan Bome put men to death by myriads, simply because they were Christians. Papal Bome has put millions of Christians to death because they were not Pagans. In nothing, perhaps, is Bome more distinctly PERSECUTIONS OP THE EOMISH CHURCH. 411 characterized tlian in that of being a persecuting Church. No history has recorded the number of her victims. Intolerance has not only stood out as an ugly excrescence, but it has from the first been the animating spirit of that huge body. From the very nature of the case, full statistics of numbers are not to be found. Thousands upon thousands, of whom the world was not worthy, disappeared — were immured in prisons, starved, tortured, and either left to die, or secretly murdered, and no record remains. According to the calculations of some, about 200,000 Christian Protestants suffered death, in seven years, un- der Pope Julian ; no less than 100,000 were massacred by the French in the space of three months ; Walden- ses who perished amounted to 1,000,000 ; within thirty years the Jesuits destroyed 900,000; under the Duke of Alva, 26,000 were executed by the hangman ; 159,000 by the Irish massacre, besides the vast multitude of whom the world could never be particularly informed, who were proscribed, starved, burnt, assassinated, chained to the galleys for life, immured within the walls of the Bastile, or others of their church and state pri- sons. According to some, the whole number of persons massacred since the rise of Papacy, including the space of 1,400 years, amounts to 15,000,000. Rome has never failed, when she had the power, to make good her claim to the prophetic title affixed to her, a "Woman drunken with the blood of the saints, AND with blood OF THE MARTYRS OF Jesus !" Intoler- ance is her very life and soul. By fire and by sword she has sought to extirpate from the earth aU who dared raise the banner of freedom, or resist her spiritual des- potism. "The valleys of Piedmont and Switzerland, the sunny plains of France and Holland, the hills of Scotland and the meadows of England, have been made 412 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. fat with the blood of countless martyrs, who have been sacrificed by the ambition of Papal power." And Eome never changes. Indeed, we may in all truth say the Devil is nowhere so completely at home, so congenially acting out his in- nermost soul, as in the work of religious persecution But for the burning fact that stands as an indelible blot on the page of history, we could not believe that jnen could ever become so completely divested of every fea- ture of a decent manhood — could so assume the nature and garb of the Arch Demon — though clad in priestly robes, " the livery of heaven" — as to instigate and stand by and witness tortures inflicted on their kindred accord- ing to the flesh, more cruel, more barbarous than the ve- riest savages ever thought of. And all this for no other crime than that of reading the Bible and worshipping God according to the dictates of their own consciences. Men, as men, never surrendered themselves up to a work so completely devilish. This whole work of religious persecution is the foulest incarnation of the Pit. It would now seem almost unnecessary to say that the Papacy resembles the old Pagan systems in the prac- tice of idolatry. We have spoken of the worship of saints and angels — the deification, after the manner of the heathen, of heroes — the worship of the Virgin, in like manner as the heathen worship their goddess. We meet at every turn and corner in Papal countries, pic- tures, images, relics, the cross, and all sorts of emblems of idolatry. In judging of the idolatrous character of Home Papal, we must have regard to the surroundings. In a country like ours, Bomanism is one thing. It ap- pears shorn of much of its deformity — especially of its grosser idolatry. Bome stands forth simply as one of the different forms of the prevalent idolatry of the land. The suppression for a time, in a Christian land, of her EASY CHANGE FEOM PAGANISM TO ROMANISM 413 real character, is simply a temporary and temporizing policy. Where Rome exists in heathen countries, she practices no such reserves and deceptions. She appears and acts out herself. In illustration of this, and as showing up Eomanism in its real character, we may cite a few instances : The reason given by the historian, why the barbarians (the conquerers of Rome) so easily submitted to the re- ligion of the conquered, is that the established form of the Eomish religion approximated so closely to their own superstition and idolatry. The Christian or Rom- ish priests did not differ so much from the heathen priests but that they might be still received and honored by the barbarians. And this is a testimony that has been borne in all heathen countries where Romanism has been introduced. No wonder the Papists are so successful in making converts. Only make it for his in- terest to become a Papist, and the idolater has no diffi- culty in changing his religion arising from any radical difference between the two religions in their character and essence. Being already an idolater, he is none the less so after his conversion. He substitutes one set of forms for another — one set of idols for another. But he has perhaps taught no new truth — has no more correct views of God or of his law and ordinances, of duty and obligation, and of the pardon of sin through the atoning blood of the crucified One, than he had while bowing down to his pagan idols. As has been most ex- tensively illustrated in British India, the conversion to Romanism is no more a conversion to Christianity than the passing from the worship of one heathen god to that of another (as the Hindoos often do) is a conver- sion to the true God ; so it is in all countries where Rome has made her inroads. In point of intelligence, morality, civilization, a purer worship, or in any of the 414: '■ THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. characteristics of a pure Christianity, the great Papal population of India has no pre-eminence over the native idolaters. Of this we have the united testimony of travellers. Speaking of Italy one says, " If a Pagan from ancient Naples should suddenly arise from his grave, he would feel perfectly at home in the practice of this false Christ- ianity. Names have been changed, but the creed and the worship are about the same. Still he meets the house- hold gods, the virgin goddess — images, pictures — gods many, and lords many. At the corner of every street, a niche contains the image of the patron saint of the place. When the street is long there are several niches with dif- ferent saints. On entering the humblest, or most splen- did shop, you see, opposite the door, the statue of the virgin or a saint, decked with flowers, and in the evening this image is lighted with candles. The Eomish priest, as he wakes up in a heathen land, and in " the chambers of her imagery," is astonished to meet objects, and to witness rites and observances which have been to him from his youth famihar as house- holds words. The heathen man, on the other hand, comes to Home, and not the less wonders that these modern idolaters have so faithfully preserved the image and su- perscription— ^yea, the life and spirit of the old idolatry. The following testimony of a Chinese missionary more than confirms all we have said. We transcribe a para- graph : " When I was compelled," says Rev. Mr. Smith, " to observe the details of these idolatrous ceremonies, I could not fail to be impressed with the striking simi- larity of the rites of Buddha with those of Popery. No unsophisticated mind, no mere ordinary observer, could mingle in the scenes which I witnessed in those tem- ples, no one could be transferred from this country to be an eye-witness of those Buddhist ceremonies and supersti- FoOT-riilKTS OF SATAN— AS SEEN IN BUDDHISM. "TlH' or.aKPt .niriosity in Japan is the ftatue of Daihoot^ or the Great Bnddah This immense image stands about two miles from the temples in a garden and grove or Iramhoos. It is of the r.aest brouzs and executed with ^"derfu ek IL It is so large that it contains a chapel and altar innde of it, and a fu 1-grown man can sit inside of its nose! Its height is about sixty-five feet, and Us diameter thrity feet." SIMILAKITY OF PAGANISM AND EOMANISM. 415 tions, without being for the moment impressed with the idea, that what he saw was nothing else than Roman Ca- thohcism in China. Would that those who show an un- happy zeal in the maintenance of the ceremonies of the Church of Eome could be transferred to this heathen land, and there see how closely Paganism assimilates with Komanism, and how intimately Eomanism assimi- lates with Paganism ! There are the same institutions, the same ceremonies, the same rites in the one as in the other. There is the monastery, celibacy, the dress and caps of the priests, the incense, the bells, the rosary of beads, the lighted candles at the altar, the same intona- tion in the services, the same idea of purgatory, the praying in an unknown tongue, the offerings to departed spirits in the temple, the same in the Buddhist temples of China as in the Koman CathoHc churches of Europe. And what is still more remarkable, and at the same time shows a melancholy resemblance between the two religions, the principal female god of the Chinese, the Goddess of Mercy, has also the title of Shing Moo, meaning holy mother, and Teen How, which means queen of heaven, and, what is still more remarkable, she is always represented by the image of a woman bearing a male child in her arms ! In fact, the whole system of Buddhist worship, as carried on in China, presents such a strong resemblance to that of the Church of Bome that an early Jesuit missionary, who visited China, declared that Buddhism must have been the invention of Satan himself, to retard the progress of Christianity by showing its striking similarity with the Buddhist worship. Which is the original and which the imitation — Ro- manism or Buddhism ? asks Bishop Kingsley in his re- cord of late travels in the East. Bead the following paragraph and possibly your decision will be in favor of Buddishm as the original. 416 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. " On this mountain, whida is ascended by thousands of stone steps, is a Buddhist monastery and temples with all the appliances for this form of idolatrous worship. Here is a great number of Buddhist priests, who live in a state of celibacy, and look, and act, and worship so much hke Roman Catholic priests, the one might be very easily mistaken for the other. Whether the Eomanists learned the mummeries from the Buddhists, or the Bud- dhists from the Bomanists, it is morally certain from the great many points of resemblance, that they had a com- mon origin. Long wax candles were burning before them, and one of them was burning incense. These priests live an austere life, refrain from animal food, believe in purgatory, pray for the dead, and live a life of mendicancy. Adjoining this great temple is the temple of the Goddess of Mercy, One of the idols in this has thirty-six hands, eighteen on each side. Directly in front of this is an image of a Chinese woman, and on either side a great number of smaller idols." In the mirror we have been holding up we have seen the image of the old Paganism reflected in all its essential features, yet so modified and changed in name — so adap- ted to the change of times and the progress of the world, and more especially to the progress of the true rehgion, as to exhibit it as a consummate scheme of diabohsm to counteract the benevolent purposes of God for the salva- tion of men, and to estabhsh the empire of Satan over this apostate world. Whether this shall prove the final great counterfeit — the summation on earth of the infernal machinations of his Satanic Majesty to subvert the di- vine scheme for the restoration of man, and to achieve the ruin of our race, or whether we shall look for another revelation of the " mystery of iniquity " — of the " deceivableness of unrighteousness," a scheme yet more subtle, seductive and dangerous because assuming yet ANOTHER GREAT RELIGION TO ARISE. 417 more of the guise of the true religion, we affirm not. Yet it would seem but analogous with the past to sup- pose that there yet remains to be revealed another phase of the man of sin — or the man of sin, the final ma- nifestation, in relation to which all the preceding dispen- sations of the Devil were but preparatory to the dreadful consummation. There is some ground to satisfy such a surmise. Ro- manism is effete. Its idolatry is too gross for the age. Its rites and superstitions belong to a darker age. The world has advanced, knowledge has increased, civilization has made decided progress, and liberty has given unmis- takable tokens that ere long she will unfurl her banners over every nation on the face of the earth. And more than all, the religion of the New Testament has made not- able advance. As the Oriental nations have outgrown the Paganism of bygone ages, so have the Western na- tions become too enlightened and free much longer to tol- erate the semi-Paganism of Home. Hence our Arch- Foe seems shut up to a corresponding change of tactics, and of his mode of warfare. Home is still strong — mighty in her munitions and strongholds to carry on the warfare under the old regime, but no more suited to the state of the world than old imperial Rome would be, were she to attempt to cope with modem France or England. She would have the power but not the adaptedness — the appHances. Rome must change her tactics — put on the modem armor. And the same is yet more true of the reKgion of Mecca and of the Pagan nations of Asia. They lack the same adaptedness to the times. Hence we infer that the Devil will change his tactics and his whole mode of warfare — that another great anti-Christ- ian power shall arise, (emanating out of the mouth of the Dragon, and of the Beast, and the false Prophet) more 27 418 THE JFOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. formidable because more subtle — more like Christianity in form and pretence, yet more unlike in spirit and essence — a baptized form of modem skepticism and infi- delity, bearing the name of Christ, and professing to be especially a Church for the times, yet more essentially Anti- Christ than the present Eomish Apostasy. The Beast without his horns — the Dragon with all his fierceness and malignity and eagerness to devour, yet clad in the guise of the lamb, and the false Prophet robed in the vestments of the High Priest of Christianity, yet with all the intolerance of the Arch-Turk. XX. FALSE KELIGfoNS— ^JESUmSM. THE JESUITS — CHAKACTER OP THE EEATEENITT — ^THE MISSION OF MADUEA— POLICY OF THE MISSIONARIES — CHARACTER OP CONYERTS — JESUITS IN AMERICA — ^THEIR SPIRIT AND POUCI UNCHANGED. " The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me" — " Whose coming is after the working of Satan, with aU power and signs and wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness" — John xiv., 30 ; 2 Thes ii., 9, 10. Since the apostasy Satan has been the god of this world. His empire has pervaded the entire territory of humanity. His aim has been to make a complete mo- nopoly of all which belongs to man. By sin he has marred the beauty of this lower world, alienated man from his Maker, and as far as possible perverted every- thing from its original design. He has prevailed to throw all into disorder and darkness and perversion. Christ came to destroy the works of the Devil — to re- store the ruins of the Fall — to disarm the Destroyer, and to reinstate man and this earth in their original condi- tion. 420 THE FOOT-PKINTS OF SATAN. Our motto presents Christ approaching the crisis of the conflict with the Devil. In Gethsemane should be the great agonizing struggle. He must here suspend further communication with his disciples. He could not talk much more with them because the prince of this world — the poioer of darkness — approached, and he must now grapple with the Arch Foe. The death-blow to the prince should now be given — and henceforth his king- dom should wane and the prince himself be bound in everlasting chains, and the kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the kingdom in the whole earth be given to the saints of the Most High. Though forever done away and not a vestige of the vast and melancholy insurrection which has so long and so miserably confused our world, shall remain to disturb the harmony and love and eternal blessedness of the righteous, yet the history of this melancholy insurrection shall never lose its interest — how sin entered the world — why it was permitted — what ends are to be accom- plished by it — by what agencies and instrumentalities it is made to develop itself and to accomphsh its ends — what plans, schemes, systems, the prince of this world devises to enthrall man in bondage and to compass his ruin — what institutions he perverts — what monopohes he se- cures— what agencies he employs. We have abeady named War, Intemperance, the per- verted use of ^property, and false Religions as great and terrific agencies by which the god of this world retains his usurped power, fills the world with woe and hell with victims. We shall now speak of another species of organ- zed action, which he extensively employs for the same purpose, such as appears in fraternities, institutions, re- ligious orders and the Hke. It will suffice for our present purpose to speak of the JESUITISM THE MASTEEPIECE. 421 Society of Jesus, or the institute of Ignatius Loyola, commonly called Jesuitism. "We have not selected this subject as a mere abstract or historical question, but as a subject of great practical importance in its bearing both on our nation and on the One Church, and by consequence, on the cause of liberty and rehgion throughout the world. For no other people have more need to become acquainted with the character nature and extent, design and power of this institution the means of its advancement and its aim. It is probable the activities of this society are at this moment more busily and more effectively employed in this country than in any other, and possible with greater hope of success. Jesuitism has a very singular history, and the more we study this history the more shall we become convinced that this is the masterpiece of the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience. It is a consummate system of dupHcity, cunning, and power for the maintenance of a control over human mind. I do not know that there exists in our world at the present time another system so fraught with evil, so potential in the support of error, and so dangerous to the cause of hberty and aU true re- hgion. We may therefore regard Jesuitism as Satan's choicest, most adroit and most potent engine for the maintenance of his empire on the earth. The founder of this society was Ignatius Loyola, bom in 1491. A Spanish soldier till 1521, when receiving a severe wound, in the siege of Pampeluna, which disabled him from further miUtary service, he gave up the profes- sion of a soldier for that of a saint, and soon conceived the idea of forming a new religious order, to be called the Society of Jesus. After thirteen years of study, journey- ings, seK-mortification and penance, this " knight errant of our Blessed Lady," as he should be called, established his order (1534) with seven members. Six years after 422 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. (1540) it was sanctioned and owned by tlie Pope, Paul III., who granted to its members the most ample privi- leges and appointed Ignatius the first general of the order, with almost despotic power over its members. "We thus find Jesuitism and the Romish Church early in alhance. We are not, however, to regard this alliance as a necessary one. Romanism and the institution of Loyola are two distinct things, met usually in concert, because they are so nearly aUied in spirit, and of conse- quence they mutually aid each other. Jesuitism is an in- dependent institution, living by its own life and acting for or against the Church as its own policy dictates. Though it lent the most efficient aid to the cause of Rome, and is generally found in alliance with her, yet the institution has its own ends to compass, which her members will not be diverted from, whether they can be gained with or without, or in spite of the Romish Church. The Pope, in accepting the services of the disciples of Loyola, thought to get instruments for his work. He re- ceived, not servants but a master. Loyola got the tools. The Papal Church is but the instrument, the tool of the Jesuits — the Beast on which they ride to power and con- quest. And in recalling them after so long a banishment, and again making these "vigorous and experienced rowers," helmsmen of the ship, Rome did but confess her weakness and inabihty to cope with the increasing hght, and the progress of hberty and rehgion in the nineteenth century. The world has probably never seen a " more powerful, corrupt, untiring, unscrupulous, invincible, or- ganization in any department of human labor, or in any period of human history." " Their moral code," says another, "is one of hypocrisy, falsehood and filth." They are enemies to aU human advancement — would turn back the dial of human progress, and plunge the world again into the darkness of the dark ages. Christi- THE SUBTLETY OF JESUITISM. 423 anitj encourages learning, intelligence and mental im- provement among the people — it makes disciples. Jesuit- ism suppresses the human mind — makes instruments — tools with which to compass its own ends. It takes " the living man and makes a corpse of him — an automaton — despoils him first of all his free agency, and makes him a mere tool of the craft." The Jesuit is bound by no oath — he may violate every command of the decalogue, re- pudiate every precept of Holy Writ, provided it be for the advantage of the society. The Pope must be obey- ed, the interests of the Church secured, whatever despite may be done to God and his truth. And that he may consummate his ends the Jesuit may do anything, may he anything. He may play saint or sin- ner— traitor or patriot — angel or devil, just as may seem best to subserve the purpose m hand. The Jesuits are al- lowed, by their " Constitutions," to assume any disguise, to put on any character — adopt any means — use truth or falsehood — right or wrong, just as they deem conducive to the interests of the Church. Indeed, they may become members of any Church they please — Baptist, Methodist Presbyterian — may become preachers — anything to sub- serve the purpose desired. In contemplating, as we propose, Jesuitism as the most subtle device of the Devil to pervert and monopolize man's religious instinct — to make the Eomish apostasy the most speciuus complete counterfeit of Christianity, the most formidable and dangerous antagonist of a pure religion, we can scarcely select a feature more character- istic and more dangerously delusive than the unreserved devotion of the members of this order to the Eomish Church. A devotion in a good cause worthy only of im- itation and praise, but in the cause of delusion and false- hood the most fearfully potent. Well may Rome boast of the remarkable consecration 424 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAJn. to h.er interests of the disciples of Loyola. They have done more to extend her borders, and especially to carry out the real animus of her institutions, than aU other orders combined. They furnish the most complete spe- cimens of unreserved devotion — self-denial, abnegation of self. They brave every chmate, encounter every hard- ship, submit to every privation — take their lives in their hands and go to the ends of the earth. They spare no pains to subsidize, ha order to the carrying out of their one great aim, talent, time, money, position — all things to the cause they have espoused. No sect, claiming the Christian name, has ever furnished an example of such de- votion— an example so nearly up to the New Testament mark. In a good cause it is worthy of all imitation. Had it been imitated, no territory on earth would have remained unvisited by the missionary, no district without the church and the school, and no family without the Bible. " With them personal and individual interests, the claims of ease or of selfishness, are aU merged in their ab- sorbing devotion to the honor and interests of the Church. It is a joy to them to forsake the endearments of early associations, to cross oceans, to penetrate remote cUmes, to sacrifice aU the nobler ties of human existence, to labor, and eventually die, as soHtary exiles in the most dismal recesses of human abode — all for the aggrandize- ment of the hierarchy." Most emphatically, yet in the worst sense, they become " all things to aU men," if by any means, right or wrong, they may gaiu some. They accommodate themselves to all classes of men, to aU conditions of life, to all circum- stances, wait with all patience, though it may be through years of apparently unsuccessful toil. They have but one idea, one aim, which they pursue with an unswerving perseverance. While we cannot too earnestly deprecate THE ANIMUS OF JESUITISM. 425 the means and the end sought by such devotion, we can- not but admire the devotion itself as worthy the imitation of all who bear the name of Jesus. Again, they are right in the choice of a name, Jesuits, the devotees, the disciples, the followers of Jesus. No- thing could more appropriately indicate what they should be, and nothing under the circumstances is a more shock- ing burlesque on the most sacred name. Jesuitism fur- nishes one of the most notable examples of what devotion to a bad cause can do. It is perhaps in all its features and bearings the most plausible, dangerous and success- ful feat of Satanic craft. It is the great counterfeit and the great antagonist of a pure Christianity. But it is not so much our design to give a history of Jesuitism as it is to present something of its true animus — what it really is when allowed to take root in a genial soil, and spring up and bear its fruit, unstinted, unobstructed by external influences. This it did at one period on the western coast of Africa. It there showed itseK the most unmitigated friend of ignorance, cruelty and despotism, the unblushing abettor of the slave trade, unblushingly dishonoring Christianity by a most unseem- ly compromise with the rites and superstitions of African idolatry. It was, in some respects, a change in forms, rites, worship and object of worship, but in scarcely any a nearer approximation to the truth. Here Jesuitism had a fair field, nothing to impede its full and natural development. Yet such was the ignorance and degra- dation of Africa — such the lack of hterature, science and learning in general, that she afforded a field for the dis- play only of the grosser characteristics of the order. We propose therefore to take our portraiture of Jesuit- ism in a yet more congenial field, where it had its perfect work. That field was India. Here Jesuitical craft and cunning, avarice and ambition had full play, and brought 426 THE lOOT-PRINTS OP SATAN. fortli their legitimate fruits. " We cannot therefore try the Jesuits more favorably than on ground selected by themselves — in their most successful mission, where all that was peculiar in their policy and principles had fuH room to develop itself unchecked by rivalry, untram- melled by external interference, and remote from jealous or hostile observation." In India the Jesuits found an ancient, organized and all-powerful religion and comparatively an intelligent and cultivated priesthood. The latter held unlimited control over the people, and indeed over the government. They had therefore only to ensconce themselves in this strong- hold of social, civil, and religious influence, in order to work out the schemes of their craft to perfection. How they did this, will best appear from a brief narrative of their famous mission in Southern India, more generally known as the mission of Madura. The glory of the Je- suits is their missionary spirit, and the glory of their missions is the mission of Madura. Their writers speak in the most glowing terms of the fervor and self-denial of the missionaries, and of their purest zeal for the conver- sion of the heathen, of the unparalleled success of the mis- sion in gathering in converts by the tens of thousands, and of the yet more extraordinary character of these con- verts. " Miracles were numerous — rivalry and strife un- known, hundreds of thousands were added to the Church, and the converts lived and died in all the fervor of their first love, and with the purity of the angels of heaven. Never was the Christian Church so blessed, never so suc- cessful, for even the primitive Christians and the apostles of Christ were inferior in seK-denial, in heavenliness of spirit, and in successful propagation of the gospel." The mission numbered 150,000 converts. " The least each missionary baptized was a thousand a year." Fa- ther Bouchet writes that he had baptized two thousand JESUITS AHD mSSIONAEJES. 427 the last year. " After they once became Christians they were like the angels, and the Church of Madura seems a true image of the primitive Church." We do not question their zeal and devotion, and suc- cess in making converts such as they were. Their untir- ing perseverance and devotion is worthy of all praise and imitation. " They were energetic and laborious mission- aries, persevering for centuries in the pursuit of their ob- ject, and for that object enduring privations, persecutions, even death itself, with a courage and constancy beyond all praise. But alas ! for the perversion of these noble qualities, until they became a curse instead of a blessing. But who were these missionaries ? What were their principles — their line of policy ? What the amount and character of their success ? And what the real character of their converts ? Were they converts to Christianity, or only converts from one class of idols to another — from one set of rites and superstitions to another, not less puerile or impure ? Who were these missionaries ? It will quite suffice to say they were Jesuits, governed by their own peculiar policy, selfish, crafty, unscrupulous. And never had they a fairer field and never did they address themselves to their work with more adroitness, and singleness of aim, and with more untiring perseverance. Nowhere else perhaps did they so completely personate themselves and illustrate the principles of the fraternity. It is readily conceded that these were men of abiUty, well born and highly educated, men of undaunted courage, for " during a century and a half they fought against all things, sacred and profane, models for missionaries in zeal, in devotion to their work, in self-sacrifice, in acquaintance with lan- guages, manners and habits of the people, and therefore it is impossible not to lament and abhor the accursed policy of which they were the wilUng victims, and which 428 JHE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. will render their names and their history, to all succeed- ing ages, beacons of ruin and disgrace." But we are principally concerned to inquire what were the govern- ing principles — what the Hne of policy pursued by these Indian Missionaries ? In reply we need quote but a single paragraph from the Jesuit Jouvency's history of ^he order. The reader will at once discover the esprit de corps of this extraordinary mission, and at the same time read its history in its very origin. "Father Bobert de Nobilibus, the founder of the mis- sion, perceiving the strong prejudice of the natives against Europeans, and believing it to be invincible, de- termined to conceal his real origin, and to enter among them as one of themselves. For the purpose, he ap- plied himself diligently to the study of the native lan- guage, manners and customs ; and having gained over a Brahmin to assist him, he made himself master of the usages and customs of the sect, even to the most minute details. Thus prepared for his undertaking, and forti- fied besides with a written document, probably forged by himself or by his companion, he entered Madura, not as a Christian Missionary, but as a Brahmin of a superior order, who had come among them to restore the most ancient form of their religion. His success however was not at first complete ; and the chief of the Brahmins, in a large assembly convened for the pur- pose, accused him publicly, as an impostor, who sought to deceive the people by lies, in order to introduce a new religion . into the country; upon which Nobilibus produced a written scroll, and in the presence of all protested, and MADE OATH that he had verily sprung from the god Brahma. Three Brahmins, overpowered by such strong evidence, then rose and persuaded their brethren not to persecute a man who called himself a Brahmin, and proved he was so by written evidence and solemn oaths, MISSION OF MADUEA. 429 as well as by a conformity to their manners, conduct and dress." Having passed this ordeal so triumphantly, he next gave himself out to be a Sunyasee, and for the remainder of his life kept up the cheat successfully.* His example was followed by all his successors in the mission, and the discovery of the falsehood, or the mere knowledge that they were Europeans, they ever afterwards feared as the sure signal of their discomfiture. Thus was laid the foundation and the chief corner stone of the far famed mission of Madura ! Founded in a most un- blushing He and perjury, it brought forth fruits worthy of its ignoble origin. It seems to have been no part of the labors of these self-made Brahmins from Europe to bring these idolaters of Asia wp to Christianity, but they expended all their skill and power to bring Christianity down to them. They made them not one whit less superstitious or idol- atrous. They substituted the Virgin for the Hindoo god- dess— the worship of saints and angels for that of the lords many, and the gods of the heathen. There was nothing in the one more than in the other of reformation, of life, purity of heart, or reverence for God, his service, his word or his day. The Christianity of these Koman Sunyasees afforded no more test of character and was followed by no reformation of manners, and presented to the world no evidence that the new religion possessed any moral superiority over the long venerated rehgions of * The Sunyasee is tlie fourth and most perfect institute ot the Brahmins. They wear the orange-colored dress — fast often, eat neither flesh, fish, eggs nor cooked vegertables, bathe three times a day, sleep on the tiger's skin which during the day they wear on their shoulders ; let their beard grow, rub the forehead and breast with the ashes of cow's-dung,/orScrip- ture, not unlikely to force forward a notion whose startling merit it is that it cannot possibly be true. A.t times the preacher, so called, is an infidel man clearly, and verily " takes the stump." Infidelity is thrust in your face as the authorized gospel. " V. The times are times of great improvement and gain to religion. Consistently with all that has gone before, I believe that the world is a better world at this moment than when the sun came up this morning. A quicker un- derstanding of these bad things, our being all aliv^ to them is proof of progress. The light it is that makes us to know the darkness. Mighty forces are lodged with the Churches of Christ, and are at work. A kingdom there is that is to dominate. Collateral helps are all abroad, and the great currents of human destiny do set in the right direction, but under God the gold in Cahfornia and diamonds in Africa ; cotton in one country and the spinning power in another ; steam on their on track and on the track of ocean and river ; electric wires over the land and under the depths of the sea ; rumors of war and very battles ; pestilence in Persia and tornadoes of fire in THE GOOD TIME COMING. 515 America ; Mormonism and Moliammedanism ; embassies from old China and old Japan, and the killing of Chinese in this newest land ; " the infallibilitj of the Pope " and the sure fallibility of the Pope ; the going abroad of the missionary and the staying at home of the misanthrope — all hasten the day of deliverance and of victory. We can now forecast how the glad earth is to rise in her green and sunshine beauty of holiness to the Lord, as she did not so certainly rise at first, a stony, watery, blackened, uninhabitable mass. The time of the end is not yet, O not yet, but the time of the end shall come." Yes, the time of the end shall come. Already do we hear the " sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry- trees." It is the Lord going out before us to smite the "hosts of the Philistines." Our enemy is doomed. His strongholds are undermined. His empire on the earth must end. A stronger than he has come, "who shall overcome him and take away from him all the armor wherein he trusted, and divide his spoils." An open Bible, a free press, benevolent and reformatory organi- zations of every name and for every purpose, a host of Christian evangelists scattered through every land, and all the resources, facilities and elements of moral progress furnished by our modern Christian civiUzation, all give cheering assurance that earth's redemption draweth near. Christ's mission on earth was to " destroy works of the Devil." Consequently every inroad made by the gospel, every Bible translated into another tongue, every truth preached, every convert made, every Church organized is a direct invasion on the empire of Satan. Christ, as Immanuel, entered the battle-field of a long, contested war. From the first revolt of the great apos- tate, " there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels, and that great dragon was cast out, that old 516 ' THE FOOT-PEDfTS OF SATAN. serpent, called the Devil, and Satan. He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him." And being driven out and exiled from heaven, and ban- ished to this planet, we call earth, he took possession, set up his standard and became (bj usurpation) the god of this world. And how he has monopolized and subsi- dized to his vile purposes the great elements of power that govern the world — wealth, intellect, education, the press, civil governments and religion, manners, customs, habit and fashion — everything which controls the mind and the heart, we have essayed to illustrate in the pre- ceding pages. From Adam to Christ there was no cessation of hosti- lities. So universal was his empire that his dominion was almost undisputed. On the advent of Christ, the rightful " heir " and king, though he knew that Christ had "come to his own," yet he met him (in the " wilder- ness ") and boldly claimed as his own " all the kingdoms of the world," and challenged Christ's allegiance, as if by this magnificent bribe he might retain the supremacy. But here he received the " deadly wound." From this point the " proud waves were stayed," and the floods of iniquity which he had rolled over the world began to be turned back. From that eventful moment when Jesus said, " Get thee hence, Satan," to the present hour, his empire on the earth has been on the wane. And the " sure word of prophecy " for it, that Christ shall ride forth conquering and to conquer, till he shall put out of the way and forever destroy all the kingdoms and domi- nions, principalities and powers of Satan. Every ad- vancement of the kingdom of Christ, every inroad of the gospel is a sure prognostic of the approaching downfall of earth's great adversary. And no one can contemplate the progress already made by the gospel, the facilities and present resources of the Church for a yet more THE WEALTH OF THE CHURCH. 517 speedy progress, and not take courage tliat the day of earth's redemption is near. Railways, telegraphs, steam- boats, the great increase of wealth in the Church, the progress of science and the gift of tongues are the ready agencies of the aggressive host — winged messengers to the ends of the earth. Were the master now to visit his possessions, he would not be compelled, as of old, to take up the lamentation : " The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has not where to lay his head." (Matt, viii., 20.) Tentmakers and fishermen are no long- er the bankers of Zion. To-day she owns the cattle upon a thousand hills, the golden harvests of a million fertile fields. She has, also, her manufactories, her shops, her mills, her market-places, her banks, her stores, in ten thousand villages, towns and cities. Her ships, likewise, are on every sea, her silks and teas and furs and precious stones in aU the ends of the earth. The islands are sending her gifts. Seba and Sheba are yielding to her their gold. And what means this? Nothing beyond the simple fact that the people of Christ are becoming " rich and increased in goods." Make no such mistake. Already the Master is annually employing million after million of his earthly treasures for the furtherance of his earthly interests. As the end approaches, not a farthing will accumulate in the hands of his servants which shall not be in active circulation for his glory. But " let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped." " This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come." " Fiery trials shall try you — great tribulations, such as were not from the beginning of the world, no, nor ever shall be." 518 THE FOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. As the field narrows, as the strongholds of Satan are, one after another, captured, the more will he concentrate his forces and the hotter will be the final battle. The nearer the victory the more desperate the onset of the foe. "When the armies of our mediatorial king shall put on their strength, concentrate their forces and close up their ranks — when the king himseK shall gird on his sword, ready for the final battle, the enemy shall be aroused to make his last desperate onslaught. And the more desperate his condition the more deadly will be the fight. Pleasant as has been the dream that the sapping and mining process of the gospel shall go on, undermining one stronghold after another, the enemy quietly retiring and yielding a peaceful possession to the invading host — that the glory of the millennial morn will gently arise upon the " sea of glass," spread out in beautiful contrast to the darkness, the storms and tempests of this distorted earth, yet the word of unerring truth teaches us, and the well-known character and antecedents of our inveterate foe admonishes us that he will not yield the final posses- sion— even the forlorn hope of all further empire, without such a battle as he never fought before. The Devil will die hard. This accords with the teachings of the inspired word. Of the several notices of the great and final battle that shall precede the ushering in of the millennial glory we need refer to but a single one. It is denominated the " slaying of the witnesses." Kev. xi. This eventful con- flict most obviously follows the great success of the gos- pel, which heralds the no distant approach of the millen- nium— the no doubtful conquest of the world for Christ. " When they shall harfe Jlnished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them and Idll them." The overthrow is seeming- VICTOEY IN SEEMING DEFEAT. 519 ly complete and final — a desperate conflict of tlie Deyil and his hosts, instigated, enfuriated by the late triumphs of Christianity, and the no doubtful presage of a final triumph. Just at the crisis -when the sacramental host are marching on, with banners unfurled, to final victory, the beast from the bottomless pit, and his confederated hosts of modern infidelity and sin, make war upon them and overcome them. A striking type of this we have in the deadly assault made on the chosen tribes at the E-ed Sea. After their wonderful deliverance, they triumphantly set their faces towards the promised land, with none to molest. But when they supposed all danger passed, they were suddenly confronted by a more formidable enemy than ever before. Nothing seemed to await them but discomfiture and utter destruction. It was (as we anti- cipate in the antitype) the thick darkness that precedes the dawn. The identity of the type and antitype is beautifully apparent in the wording of the triumphal song, sung over the final victory of the Church and the^ overthrow of her last enemy. It is the " song of Moses and of the Lamb." The instance adduced is sustained by others referring to the same great event. Again, John saw the "spirits of devils working miracles and going forth to the kings of the earth and to the whole world to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty." And after the seeming and temporary triumph of the enemy and the unexpected and final triumph of the great king and Im- manuel, the angel comes down with the key of the bot- tomless pit and a great chain in his hand, and he lays hold on the dragon, that old serpent which is the Devil and Satan, and casts him into the bottomless pit and sets a seal upon him that he should deceive the nations no more. Al^D HEBE WE LEAYE HIM. XXY. THE REMEDY. "THE BESTITUnON OF ALL THINGS — THE CONQUEEOR, AND THE FINAL AND COMPLETE CONQUEST — THE TJSUEPER DEPOSED AND CAST OUT FORETER — THE EARTH RENEWED — THE RUINS OF THE FALL REPAIRED — EDEN RESTORED — PARADISE REGAINED — THE UNIVERSAL REIGN OF EIGHTEOUSNESS AND PEACE. " Where sin abounded, grace did (or sTiaU) much more abound ; that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." — Bom. v. 20, 21. ELaving disposed of tlie Devil — at least for a thousand years, the query very naturally arises, what next ? With the great deceiver, corrupter and tempter has passed away every evil humanity is heir to, intemperance, fraud and Hcentiousness, violence, murder, suicide and war ; the perversion of money and mind, of the press and the tongue ; despotism, oppression and the direst perversion of every good thing. We have seen what our enemy hath done — what have been the sore ravages of sin — how it has " abounded," how reigned, how spread its desolation everywhere — how it has assailed the throne of God, raised rebellion in THE W0K8T OF SIN. 521 heaven, cast out a " third part of heaven's sons " and re- served them in chains of darkness unto the great day. It laid our once beautiful and happy world in ruins, co- vered it with deformity, woe, lamentation and death. It has cast his dark mantle over the face of society, be- neath whose sickly shade every social virtue droops. It has laid man in ruins. The noble structm'e of his body is marred, deranged, disorganized, enfeebled by ex- cess and disease, the direct fruits of sin — and is finally demohshed by death. His mental constitution is so completely abused and demoralized, so vitiated and de- based that it remains but httle else than the miserable wreck of its once noble original. And his moral confor- mation is still more distorted. It was here that God stamped on man his own image. It was in his moral features that he bore a likeness to his God. But so marred had he become by sin, that, with an angel's ken, you would look almost in vain to trace a hneament of his godlike original. Before he sinned he shone in moral beauty, the delight of his God, but no sooner did he touch the accursed thing than his glory departed. From the crown of his head to the sole of his feet was nothing but deformity — " wounds and bruises and pu- trefying sores." But it is in the soul, the immortal soul, that sin has made his sorest ravages. You cannot look amiss to read the appaUing fact that sin everywhere abounds unto death. It has laid the soul in ruins. Not only has sin thus abounded unto death — and abounded in its workings of death, but it hath reigned unto death. It has weU nigh secured universal empire. It has enslaved the entire race in bondage from the fear of death, and then commissioned the king of terrors to ex- ecute the dread mandate, " to dust tJiou shall return." Nor has the reign of him that had the power of sin 522 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. ceased when he has dissolved man's earthly fabric. His mightiest, deadliest triumphs are reserved for the disem- bodied spirit. There sin shall reign and riot forever. He shall cast the wretched minions of his power into the prison of everlasting darkness and bind them in chains of eternal fire. But is there no remedy ? Shall not this inroUing tide of iniquity be turned back ? Shall sin reign and riot on human happiness, and trample down the noblest part of man, and none be found to rescue the prey from the power of the destroyer ? Is there no eye to pity, no arm that can bring deliverance ? Sleeps the compassion of heaven ? Slumbers the arm of omnipotence ? No ; the lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed. He has risen up to shake terribly the earth. The prince of darkness trembles on his throne. His empire is sapped in its foundations. He that rideth forth King of kings and Lord of lords, conquering and to conquer, shall put down the usurper, restore the ruins of the apostasy, reinstate the earth and man in aU their primeval beauty, holiness and honor, claim his purchased inheritance, and reign forever. And then shall the angels sing the triumphal song of "Paradise regained." " This world, over which Satan has lorded it so long, and which for ages has labored under the primal curse, shall be regenerated. The time is coming when the mark of the beast shall nowhere be seen in all the earth, w^hen the trail of the serpent shall nowhere appear in all its borders, when no storm shall shake its bowers, no earthquake disturb its repose, no bhght descend on its flowers, and when the sun shall look down with smiles upon the fair bosom of regenerated nature. Yes, this sin-cursed earth shall be redeemed. It shall be delivered from the dominion of evil ; a new genesis shall overtake it, it shall again be welcomed into the brotherhood of THE GEEAT DELIVEREE. 523 worlds, with a shout louder and sweeter than that which saluted its first advent in the skies."* But " who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Boyrah ? — this that is glorious m nis ap- parel, travelling in the greatness of his strength?" He answers : " I that spoak in righteousness, mighty to save " — the great Dehverer. But " why art thoii red in thine apparel, and thy garments hke unto him that tread- eth in the wine-press?" — ^Why these marks of blood and of severe toil on a person of so noble mien ?" He replies : " I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with me, for I will tread them in mine anger and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled on my garments and I will stain aU my raiment. For the day of my vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come." That is with a holy zeal for the honor of his father and the hap- piness of man, and a holy indignation at the impious and daring attempts of Satan, the Lord Jesus Christ assailed Satan and all his angels and sin and all its adherents, and treading them as in the wine-press of God's wrath, gained a glorious victory over sin, and wrought out re- demption for man. Much has he already done. Many a glorious victory has he won. And his " apparel is still red and his gar- ments stained with blood." He is going on from con- quering to conquer. He wiU overturn and overturn, and overturn till he whose right it is to reign shall come. This is terribly expressed in the concluding part of the passage aheady quoted : " I will tread down the people in mine anger and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth " — a dreadful * Kev. Thaddeus McEae's Lectures on Satan. 524 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. prediction of tlie final and complete overthrow of sin, and of all wlio persevere in rebellion against tlie great king. Yes, blessed be God, there is a remedy ! There is a balm in Gilead, there is a physician — one that is mighty to save — the great Deliverer. A gratuitous deliverance. All progress of the gospel, all success of every species of reform, aU increase of light, knowledge, civilization and civil hberty are but the sure triumphs of the truth and harbingers of the good time coming, prognostics of the approaching end of Satan and his reign upon the earth, and God and his government vindicated. Christ comes to " his own," is welcomed by his people, his em- pire on earth is established, and aU things, physical, so- cial, intellectual, moral and religious, are reinstated in their beauty, utility and glory as they came from the hand of the perfect architect. What, then, are we to look for as the final triumph of grace through our Lord Jesus Christ ? I. The first essential advance towards the " restitu- tion" in question, is the setting right of an apostate race in their relatioit to God and his government. Sin is rebellion, a casting off of God, and an allegiance to the usurper. The mission of Christ is one of reconciliation, to bring men back to their rightful Sovereign. Sin has ahenated man from God, put enmity between Creator and creature, cut off communication between heaven and earth, and unfitted us for companionship with holy be- ings. Grace has repaired the breach — has brought us into covenant with God — makes all who will come child- ren of God, yea, heirs of God to an immortal inheritance — changes our relations from enemies to friends, from aliens and rebels to sons and heirs. It brings them who were afar off into the family of God and gives them man- sions in their Father's house. It does more than to effect a reconcihation between God and man. It gives THE RESTITUTION. 525 citizenship in heaven. It provides a Savctijier, "without which an Atoner would profit nothing. What then will the full realization of the work of atone- ment bj Christ, and of sanctification bj the Spirit, do for our apostate world ? It will undo what sin has done. It will destroy the works of the Devil. It will turn away the wrath of the Almighty and remove the cause of man's alienation from his God. Now accessible through tjie atoning sacrifice, as a father he bids us approach him as children. Redeemed man becomes the companion of angels as well as of just men made perfect. The grand barrier — ^the otherwise impassable barrier, to man's re- covery from the fall, is completely removed. God shall again dwell with men. In the earthly paradise, restored to all its primeval beauty, purity and loveliness, a fit ha- bitation for the everlasting residence of the saints, the "voice of God shall again walk," as a loving father with his loyal and loving children. Indeed, it is only through Christ and his ' redeeming work that we know God. We obtain through the volume of nature the merest outlines of the character and the works of God. His existence and his power, wisdom and goodness are inscribed on all his, works and ways. But it is through God " as manifest in the flesh," that the godhead is revealed unto men. It is only through the face of Jesus of Nazareth that we see God who is invi- sible. And only through the atoning blood of the Lamb of God that we understand our true relations to God and to his violated law, and his relation to us as the forgiving God. The great wonder in the history of our world — and perchan^fe of the universe, is the mysterious union of the divine justice and mercy in the scheme of redemp- tion through Jesus Christ. How could God vindicate his law and yet treat as guiltless the transgressor ? This is the theme of wonder, praise and adoration of the 52G THE FOOT-PEINTS OP SATAN. heavenly hosts throughout eternity. This is what " an- gels desire to look into." Hence the triumphal song when Christ appeared as the babe of Bethlehem. It was, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." II. "What this great renovation, or " restitution of all things," shall do for the ivorJd. We have seen what sin has done — how it has laid the world in ruins — covered it with thorns and briars — ^filled it with violence, fraucj, malice, murder and death, and made it the abode of wretchedness and woe. It has filled the heart of man with every furious and hurtful passion, and turned his hand against his fellow and his heart against his God. It has closed the hands of charity, dried up the streams of benevolence, thwarted the kind designs of philanthropy and bound the world in the frosty chains of selfishness. Grace enters as the great regenerator — to bring back the world to its original purity, dignity and moral rectitude, to its pristine beauty and happiness. Christ comes to eradicate the thorn and the briar — to speak peace to the warring elements of strife, to quell the voice of tumult, to stay the hand of violence, to banish every corroding passion from the human breast, to bind all together by the ties of a common brotherhood, and to evidence to all that we are children of the same father, heirs of the same inheritance and expectants of the same glory. Grace will restore all that sin has taken away. And what signs that the morning cometh have we in the rapid extension of the gospel! How is the desert changed into the fruitful field and the wilderness into the garden of the Lord ! The withering curse, whether in the form of infidelity or idolatry, licentiousness or in- temperance, has spread, like a pestiferous sirocco, till it has made our world little else than one great, moral desert. The gospel standard is set up against it. Na- THE DAEK DAY IS COMING. 527 tion after nation "has been reclaimed till there are brought under the benign sway of the gospel all the most enlightened, the strongest, the most civilized and refined nations of the earth. And of all the Pagan tribes that remain wedded to their idols there is no consider- able nation, the strength of whose civil power is not broken and the vigor of whose religious system is not decidedly on the wane. "What has done this? It is doubtless the resistless encroachments of the gospel. It is the stone " cut out of the mountain without hands," which, having " smote the image," shall fill the whole earth. The victorious banners already wave over many a nation and many an island where fifty years ago Satan reigned without a rival. And, if we may judge from present prognostics, the day is not distant when the tri- umphs of grace shall be co-extensive with' the earth. But " let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped as God, sitting in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." " The mystery of iniquity doth already work : that Wicked shall be re- vealed whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming." A yet darker day than the Church has yet seen must first come. He that opposeth will arise in yet greater wrath, to strike the last desperate blow. " His coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness." " Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, de- ceiving and being deceived." " This know, that in the last days perilous times shall come." And then follows a catalogue of sins, black and hideous, which shall cha- racterize those " last days." Again we hear of " mockers 528 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN, in the last time," of " scoffers, walking after their own lusts," and of the " mystery of iniquity." It will be a dark day — the great and dreadful conflict that sliall herald the glorious advent of our king. It wiU be the thick darkness that precedes the dawn of the millennial glory. Already we seem to see through that dark inter- vening cloud the speedy approach of a glorious day to Zi- on — the no distant triumph of light over the power and prince of darkness. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly, for the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain, waiting dehverance from thee. ^ And more than this may we expect. We are promised a ^physical deliverance, a material renovation of this earth which shall remove all natural evils, take away the thorn and the briar, the desert, the earthquake and the tor- nado, which shall repair the physical ruins of the fall and restore the earth to its primeval, Eden state. The earth itself shall be renovated and beautified, shall undergo a change analogous to that which takes place in the spiritu- al world. The long and dreary winter of six thousand years shall pass away. Plagues, dearths, tempests, fam- ines shall be known no more. The flowers, the fruits, the beauty, the salubrity of Eden uncursed, shall abound and the earth again be a paradise and a fit habitation for the sons of God. The curse shall be removed. The earth shall be physically redeemed, when the very " de- sert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose," when the " taint shaU. be removed from the atmosphere and the malaria from the ground." When tempests and torna- does shall cease to rage and volcanoes shall rend the earth no more. " We, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness ; new — i. e., renewed, restored to its original fertility and beauty — ^purified by fire, and made again what it was when he PAEADISE EEGAINED. 529 that created it pronounced all to be " good " — without defect or deformity, with no barrenness or deserts, no ex- cess of heat or cold, no devastations by wind or tide, by storm or tempest, but all beauty and fertility, all perfect- ly adapted to the best interests and the supreme happi- ness of man. Such a condition of the earth shall return when our enemy shall be dispossessed of his dominion, bound in chains and cast out forever^ when our blessed Immanuel shall come and claim his own — shall repair all the physi- cal ruins of sin and make earth again a paradise. All things shall then be reclaimed from a long continued and debasing perversion. The silver and the gold and the cattle on a thousand hills shall be the Lord's. The earth that brings forth all that can make glad the heart of man and make his face to shine, shall be as the garden of the Lord. Men shall then buy and sell and get gain that they may honor God and bless their fellow men. What a change! It shall write holiness to the Lord on all things. It shall sanctify all the relations of common life — all the occupations, resources and powers of man. It shall bless the social and domestic relations, regulate the laws of trade, so that men shall honor God with their substance, disbursing their abundance according to the dictates of a right conscience and the promptings of an enlarged benevolence. It shall make all men pure and peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Wars shall cease, fraud and op- pression shall be no more. Impartial love to man and supreme love to God shall prevail. And then shall be realized in all the beauties of holiness what the angels foreshadowed over the manger at Bethlehem : " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to- wards man." 34 530 THE FOOT-PEINTS OP SATAN. Human government, civilization, science, learning, commerce, war and peace, which had so long done little else than to add power to the original curse and intensify its penalties, shall henceforth become most efficient agencies for good in the new kingdom. The majesty of law shall no longer be trampled under foot, or the judi- ciary be corrupted, or the guilty allowed to go un- punished. Manners, customs, habits, fashions, pleasures, recreations and all the socialities of life, shall become sub- servient to the honor of God and the highest good of man. But one aspect of the subject just alluded to deserves more than a casual glance. We have traced the desolat- ing footsteps of our enemy in man's social life. Human happiness is. very much suspended here. If tares be sown on this field, man has little to expect but a bitter harvest. Yet true it is, as we have seen, that here our enemy has perpetrated some of his saddest devastations. IV. Let us then see if we can, on the other hand, trace the footsteps of grace as she comes again to repair the ruins of the apostasy. What has grace done for us here? The venon of sin has spread through all the veins and arteries of society, corroding it to its very vitals. It made selfishness the watchword of every little community, and set the green-eyed monster. Jealousy, to watch at every door. It planted deep the tree of discord, and caused to spring up in every nook and corner the un- sightly plants of envy, pride, ambition and distrust. Confidence was exiled, and the world set on fire by the tongue of slander. Thus did sin reign in man's social re- lations unto the workings and wranglings of a lingering death. In proportion to the prevalence of vice, our social relations are vitiated and wretched. Not a single social virtue can thrive — can expand into its own native beauty SOCIETY MADE HAPPY. 631 and loveliness and come to maturity under the reign of sin. It can little more tlian exist, and that only with a ceaseless conflict with opposing elements. But what a change when grace comes to her rescue ! Grace rebukes the raging of the passions, humbles pride, curbs ambition or gives it a lawful direction, extinguishes envy and banishes jealousy. She comes not but there follows in her train a lovely band of kindred graces, all bearing the image of their maternal origin. Benevolence is her hand- maid, humility her covering and hope the Hght of her countenance. Around about her you may see, sporting in all the charm and and luxuriance of spiritual life. Love, Joy, Peace, Long-suffering, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, Temperance. Against these there is no Jaw — they need no law. They can, when left to their own le- gitimate workings, produce nothing but love and harmo- mony — good will towards man and glory to God. Adorned with these golden fruits of grace society cannot be otherwise than happy. Show me a place where grace reigns, and triumphs over every vice, and I will show you a place where all the social affections and virtues are so beautifully developed that society there is altogether happy. But we inquire again, V. "What are the achievements of grace on individual character ? Sin hath put enmity between God and man, made man an alien and an enemy, unfitted him for the discharge of the duties of hfe, unfitted him for death or for a happy eternity. Sin has laid the whole man in ruins. His body is subject to disease, pain an.d death, and his soul but the wreck of that godlike thing which God breathed into the earthly tenement of man. \ But grace comes to restore man to his pristine beauty and strength, to reinstate him in the image of his God, to open again a communication with heaven, to renew hia 532 THE rOOT-PRINTS OF SATAN. friendsliip witli liis God, and to fit him, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, for the companionship of angels, and to open to him the portals of heaven. Grace kindly offers to shield him from a thousand ills in this life, to make him a better man, more happy and more honorable in every station — to be an angel of mercy to comfort and protect him in the last dark hour of death — ^to go with him through the dark valley, and finally to present him faultless before the pre- sence of his glory with exceeding joy. What then are we to conclude shall be the final and eternal condition and destiny of this earth ? It shall undergo a very essential revolution, a purification by fire — sometimes called a destruction — so completely changed that it is called a " new earth." It shall become a fit temple for holiness, the habitation of righteousness and peace and purity, a suitable dweUing-place for the sons of God. Sin and all its corruption and disquietude, and rebellion, and misery and death, once banished from the earth and its regeneration once consummated, and this is the " restitution of all things " to their primeval beauty and perfection. And being once so restored, what shall be its future and eternal destination ? Before we urge a reply let as ask what shall be the fu- ture local destination of man ? The renovation of the earth, we may assume, is but the noteworthy counterpart of the renovation of man. And as the earth, and all things pertaining thereunto, were originally made for man, and as man and the earth mutually shared the curse, for " together they groan and travail in pain," what is more probable than that they shall be finally and for- ever united in their future destiny? This planet earth is the liome of our race. Born here, nurtured here — re- joiced, suffered and sorrowed here — character, associa- tions and friendships formed here — here Christ came, EABTH man's ETERNAL HOME. b'6'6 and suffered and died to redeem him — ^here is a Gethse- mane and a Calvary — where rather amidst associations so sacred and dear, would redeemed man choose his eternal happy home? Where else would he find an abode so befitting, so congenial ? Nor are we here without the sure word of prophecy, seeming more than to intimate such a realization. We are assured the " meek shall inherit the earth." " Those that wait upon the Lord shall inherit the earth." " Such as be blessed of the Lord shall inherit the earth." God shall again dwell upon the earth, and the angelic choir shall everywhere sing, " Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good Vidll toward men." What more can grace do? Ah! there is one thing more that grace may do, yea, must do, or you my impeni- tent reader, are ruined forever. It must overcome your wicked heart, it must bring you into willing obedience to your only Lord and Master. Has grace done this for you? Grace has provided a way for your escape from eternal ruin — has offered you a full and free pardon — has invited and urged your acceptance. But you have rejected all these gracious offers. You have turned your back on all that a gracious God has done to restore you to the bosom of his love. If grace has done so much for you and you have as yet done so little for yourself, on what ground do you hope you shall not be a final outcast and lie down in- eternal despair, and suffer the just penalty of abused love and a violated law ? Come then, and let grace do its glorious work in you. Where sin hath abounded, let grace much more abound. Where sin hath so long reigned working death, let grace reign unto eternal life. Christ shall sit upon the throne of his father David. Soon shall he come and call us hence away. Soon shall 534 THE FOOT-PEINTS OF SATAN. the earth put on her robes of beauty and be made the abode of Christ and his ransomed ones. May we all be of the blessed number to whom upon his coming he will say, " Eise up and come away." INDEX. PAGE Abuse of wealth 216 Adam's temptation and sin 28 Ambition perverted 221 , 446 Amusements, cost of 251 Ancients, wealth of the . . . 283, 285 Ancient extravagance 272, 274 Ancient wars, losses in ... . 115 , 128 Apostasy, the begianing of evil —the first 27 Apostasy, Papal 75 Appalling facts of intemperance 157 Assaults upon the early Church 81 Angels, Satan once the chief of 26 Had Passions 445 Baron Eothschild the money King 246 Beauties of a good life 203 Benevolent affections 442 Benevolence, the world's 236 Betrayal of Christ 35 Bible a sealed book, the ... . 92, 364 Bible, prohibition of 404 Bible no authority, the 409 Bible, war upon the 514 Brahminism 362 Buddhism 415 Christ's temptation on the mount 34 Christ forewarns the Disciples . 84 PAGE Christianity a new revelation . . 79 Christianity made for man 350 Civil war in U. S., cost of. 112, 121 Church, persecutions of the early 87 Chin'ch-services perverted 312 ' Chicago Fire, the 496 Conscience, supremacy of 441 Convents, Beads and rosary .... 394 Commune Insurrection in Paris 476 Common schools, ^ar upon .... 513 Conquest, the final and complete Consecrated wealth 283, 380 Constantine unites the Church and State 89 Corn as food versus liquor 169 Corrupt literature 301 Cost of crime 255 Cost of Heathen temples 287 Cost of Intemperance 153, 181 Cost of war to Great Britain since the Reformation. 97 Crimean War, cost of 222 Crown of England, value of 269 Cunning and craftiness of the Devil 44 Daniel and his times 335 Deaths by Papal persecution ... 411 Death record in New York, 1871 503 Debts and statistics — war 96 536 INDEX. PAGE Demoniac spirits 34 Devil, origin of the 26 Devil, expulsion from heaven ... 21 DevH, God created him an angel 27 Devil? who is the ^ 22 Devil ? where is the 23 Devil, names given to the 18 Devil, his tremendous power. . . 24 DevU, his attributes, the 24 Devil, cunning and craftiness of the 44 Devil, his characteristics, the.. 25 Devil, his deceptions, the 35 Devil, his delusions , the 37 Devil, his imitation of miracles. 35 Devil, his power of locomotion . 32 DevU, his physical powers, the.. 31 Devil god of this world, the .... 17 Devil once the chief of angels . 26 Devil before the Deluge, the . . 59 Devil in Bible times, the 58 Devil in Old Testament times . 59 DevU before Sinai, the 62 Devil, his miracles wrought, the 24 Devil, he turns the nations of the earth to idolatry . . 64 Devil in New Testament times 50 Devd, his corruption of the Church 71 Devil in " Latter times, " the. . . 474 Devil in man, the 436 Devil in New York, the 503 Devil, the end of the 518 Disasters on land and sea. . 190, 500 Dishonesty of the liquor traffic . 173 Divorce and divorce laws 466 Dogma of iofaUibility. 136, 372, 488 Dollars for ribbons, pennies for Christ 283 Draft Riot of 1863 in New York 478 Dr. Duff on spurious religions. 382 PAQB Ecumenical Council of Home 487 Eden restored 532 Egyptian mythology 377 Elijah's contest with Baal 36 Eloquence, power of 199 Examples of good and bad lives contrasted 200 Exorbitant salaries 249, 266 Expenses of royalty 268, 273 Expenses, Queen of England . . 265 Expenses, Sultan of Turkey . . . 271 Expenses of the United States Government 98 Extravagance in fashionable so- ciety 278 Extravagances in high p]ace.s .. 219, 243, 486 Extravagance of great estates . . 244, 276 Extravagance versus benevo- lence 237, 282 False religions, common ori- gin of 353 Famine, fire and floods 131, 490 Fast young men 280, 471 Fire worshippers 329 Fisk, Stokes' assassination of. .. 504 Final triumph of peace 520 Fourrierism 461 Free love and its evils 461 Fruits of municipal corruption . 485 Funeral extravagance 250 Future punishment 454 Criant intellects perverted .... 198 " Girls of the period " 471 God, perfect law of 46 God speaking in nature 317 Goddess Fashion, the . i 486 GfimbUng hells and crime 254 INDEX. 537 PAGE Hand of the Devil in history, 19 Hindooism 362 History of false religions 316 History of idolatry 74 History, perversion of ... . 210, 307 History, Papal perversion of . . .. 211 Historic religion 337 Holj- Spirit, necessity of the . . 453 Horrors of the early persecutions 87 Hymn read by St. Paul on Mars' Hill 348 Idolatry, history of 325 Income of the Pope of Eome. . 272 Income of Queen Victoria .... 265 Income of foreign potentates. . . 273 Ini'aUibility, the dogma of . 95, 136, 372, 488 Infidel publications 298 Illegitimacy and divorce 469 Inordinate desires 448 Inquisition, the 89 Intellect and business 207 Intellect, perversion of the 194 Instigators of war, who are they? 130 Intemperance a terrific agency for evil , 151 Intemperance, 1870, statistics of distilled liquors 152 Intemperance, startling statisti- cal comparisons 152 Intemperance, yearly cost of liquors in Uuited States 153 Intemperance and labor 155 Intemperance, appalling facts from New York 157 Intemperance, internal revenue statistics 160, 229 Intemperance, statistics of malt liquors in United States 161 Intemperance, statistics of New ¥ork city 163 FAGK Intemperance in Great Britain 165 Intemperance in France 167 Intemperance, corn as food ver- sus liquor 169 Intemperance, its loss to the na- tion 170,181 Intemperance, judicial testimo- ny on hquor and crime 186 Intemperance, yearly fruits of 158, 172 Intemperance a foe to national prosperity 179 Intemperance, physical effects of 188 Intemperance, its effects on mind and morals 183 Intemperance the author of shocMng disasters 190 Jesuits, early rise of the . 93, 344 Jesuitism, character of 419 Jesuitism, foundation and histo- ry 421 Jesuitism, subtilty of 423 Jesuitism, animus of .... 425 Jesuitism and missionaries .... 426 Jewish religion, the 325 Job the early rehgious historian 320 Judas, the accursed kiss of ... . 34 Judicial testimony on liquor and crime 186 Kings and queens, salaries of 273 Law of God perfect, the 46 Laws of nature contravened. . . 443 Lax laws of divorce 469 Learned professions, the 204 Liberal Christianity 489 Libraries open on the Sabbath . 510 Licentiousness in high places . . 486 Licentious literature 304, 516 INDEX. Liquor statistics of United States 152 Literary talents perverted 207 Lives of great men contrasted . 202 Loss of life in ancient and mo- dern wars 115 Luther and the Reformation ... 92 Luxury versus poverty 245 Man the image of God. . 436, 451 Man in every sense perverted. . . 438 Man cannot restore himself .... 453 Magnitude and mischief of sin. 42 Marriage, the sanctity of 458 Man-iage makes home 460 Martyrdom of the Apostles ... 85 Mental resources and activities. 195 Medical testimony on spiritous liquors 188 Milton and Dante, ideas of. . 26, 29 Missionary appropriations .... 237 Modern extravagance 242 Mohammedanism 357 Money perverted — see (wealth) . 215 Money misdirected 218 Money wickedly applied 222 Money expended in liquor 226 Money expended in opium 234 Money expended in tobacco .... 231 Money expended in wars 223 Money spent in amusements . . . Money spent in war might do, what 101 Money and the Church 380 Moral effects of intemperance 154, 183 Mormonism 357, 461 Music, perversion of 209, 310 Mythology, Egyptian 367 If antes given to the Devil 18 Nev? Jerusalem, the 274 PAGE Nero, the Boman tyrant 86 Opera and Church, the 311 Opium and its effects 175 Opium, statistics of 235 Origin of falsa Religions.. 316, 353 Origin of idolatry 325, 353 Osiris, the Egyptian Messiah.. 344 Paganism a false Eeligion . 356 Papal apostasy, the 75 Papacy and Paganism 388 Papal persecutions 410 Papal prayers for the deceased.. 401 Papal perversion of history .... 210 Paradise changed to a pandimo- nium 33 Paradise regained 522 Patriarchal religion 318 Purgatory, the doctrine of . . . .. 399 Perversion of history 210, 307 Perversion of the periodical Press 295 Perversion of religion, the 353 Perversion of the religious Press 299 Perversion of speech, the 308 Perversion of Literary talent, the 207 Perversion of intellect, the 194 Perversion of wealth, the 215 Perversion of music and song, the 209, 315 Persecutions, the ten first 86 Persecutions of the Eomish Church 410 Peter's denial 35 Pilgrimage the true idea 377 Politics and politicians 73 Pope of Rome, income of 272 Popery the great counterfeit . . . 369 Popery and waste of money.. . . 288 Popular notions of Satan 26 Power of a good life, the 203 INDEX. 539 Power of eloquence, the 199 Power of religion, the 315 Power of speech, the 308 Power of the printing Press . . . 293 Pride the sin of apostate angels 29 Physical effects of intemperance 188 Pride and vanity 452 Profligacy, the curse of • . . . 473 Progressive revelation 339 Prohibition of the Bible 404 Protestant extravagance 290 Queen of England's salary . . . 265 Reformation f the 87, 92 Kehgion and science 212 Kegal extravagance 264, 276 Eehgions, history of false .... - 353 Rescue of lost truths • 349 Eestitution of all things 520 Bevelations from Sinai 346 Eevolt in heaven led by Satan, 28 Kiot of 1863, in New York, the 478 Riot 12th of July, 1871, upon " Orangemen" 479 Bites and ceremonies of false worshippers.. 330, 358, 429 Romance and fiction . 307 Romanism a false religion. 360 Romish Church in America, the 94 Romanism and crime 468 Romish festivals and holy days. 391 Romish hostihty to the Bible 364, 406 Romish priesthood claim mira- cles 37 Romanism resembles Paganism 403 Ruin repaired, the 516 Rum the great destroyer 158, 172, 190, 227 Sabbath a holiday, the 392- PASB Sabbath, profanation of the 510 Sacrifices of the North and South in the civU war.. 119 Salaries of European monarchs. 273 Sanctity of marriage 458 Satan had no tempter. 28 Satan leads the revolt in heaven 28 Satan in false religions 314 Satan in the early Church 78 Satan's power over the elements 33 Satan in the marriage relation. . 457 Satanic majesty alarmed, his . . 474 Satan in war 96 Satan, why represented as black 30 Science and true religion 213 Senses, perversion of the five . . 439 Sinner a self-destroyer, the 455 Sin entailed upon the human family 54 Sin charged with all existing evil 55 Sin the cause of all human woe 44 Sra, why permitted 43 Sin, as affecting our relations to God 48 Sin as affecting human govern- ment 47 Sia as affecting our social rela- tions 52 Sin, the worst of. 621 Sin as affecting divine govern- ment 46 Smoking, effects of 178 Socialism 461 Song, perversion of 209, 310 Speech, perversion of 308 Spiiitualism, modem 464 Spirit rappings 39 Spurious religions, modem .... 353 St. Paul on Mars' Hill 347 Statistics of liquor and intem- perance.. 152, 158, 161, 181 Spaniards ravage Mexico for gold 261 540 INDEX. PAGE Supremacy of conscience Ml Tammany Eing 480 Tammany frauds 482 Theatres and their cost 253 Tobacco statistics 177, 231 True religion, history of 343 Triumph of righteousness, the final 524 Universal reign of righteous- ness and peace Unrighteous investments 261 Untold evils of intemperance . . 154 Untold evils of war 123 Usurper, deposed and cast out, the Use and abuse of wealth 216 United States census statistics of liquor 152 Vanity and pride 450 Value of the crown of England 268 War — its untold evUs 123 War, the expense of 96 War, revolution not reforma- tion 127 War, its moral devastations. . . . 132 War, its desolations 139 War, its demoralizing effects . . . 143 War contradicts Christianity . . . 147 War as an art perfected Ill War, who are the instigators of. 130 War-debts, who pays them ? 105 War, with startling compari- sons 107 War and agriculture 109 War and benevolence 108 War-debt of Christian nations 97, 102 War and public debt of Europe .. 103 PAGE War — strength of ancient armies 128 War, cost of standing armies. . . 224 Wars, sacrifice of life in ancient 115, 128 War, cost of the Eevolutionary. 97 War, the cost of 1812 97 War, cost of the Florida 97 War, cost of the Mexican 97 War, cost and losses of the Ci- vil, 1861-5... 112,121, 138 War, horrors of Libby Prison and Andersonville 126, 138 Wars, cost of European 99, 223 Wars, cost of Indian 100 Wars, sacrifices of life in Napo- leon's c Ill War-saying of Napoleon Bona- parte 144 War, cost of Italian 223 War, cost of the Franco-Prus- sian 114, 136 War, statistics by Baron Von Keden 109 War, temptations of military life 145 War, no necessity of 148 War, duty of Christians con- cerning 149 Wealth, see Money 215 Wealth consecrated 380 Wealth, perversion of 215 Wealth versus poverty 245 Wealth of the ancients 283, 285 Wealth, waste of, in Pagan Keli- gion 256, 288 Wealth, waste of, in Chinese worship 258 Wealth, waste of, in the Eomish Church 259, 288 Wealth, waste of, in the Protest- ant Church 290 Wedding extravagance 219 INDEX. 541 Whaling Meet disaster, the. . . . 501 Woman in Eden 471 Woman's rights 464 What is man ? 437 What is marriage ? 458 What hath sin done 45 Why i,3 sia permitted? 43 Xerxes' army and losses, 115, 129 Yearly fruits of intemperance 158, 172 Zoroaster founds a new reli- gion 328 NOTE. 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Price, $3.50* Grant and ISherman and Their CJenerals. — By Hon. J. T. Headlbt. Comprising the Life and Times of Generals Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas Hooker Meade, Burnside, Rosecrans, Howard, Hancock, Gilmore, Sedgwick, Siegel, McPherson Kilpatrick' Slocum, Logan, Schofield, Hazen, McCIernard, Terry, Warren, and others. 606 pages with 30 Steei Portraits, Battle Scenes and Maps. The four years of civil war in which the United 'states were so recently involved has created a History, the records of which are full of Heroes and Heroic Deeds and Mr. Headley, of all writers, is perhaps best qualified to port/ay the stupendous features of the mighty contest. Cloth Binding, $3.50; Library Style, Full Sheep, $4.50; Half Calf Antique, $5.50. 1h.e same in Gerimaja at the same price. Farragot and ©ur Waval Conanaanders.— By Hon. J. T. Heaolet. The only work of Naval Biographies of the Rebellion. Comprising the Life and Times of Admirals Farra^ut, Porter, Foot, Dupont, Stringham, Davis, Goldsborough, Wilkes, Winplow,Dahlfren Paulding, A7orden, Gushing, Bailey, Boggs, Blake, Rowan, Smith, Rogers, Thatcher, Palmer Jer&ns' Bell, Drayton, Craven, and others. 608 pages, and 22 Steel Portraits and Battle Scenes, Written in Mr! Headley'a graphic and inimitable style, with an authentic account of Battles, Sieges and Bombardments' including the recent discoveries in conducting Naval Warfare by Gun-Boats and Iron-Clad Vessels ; also thrilling descriptions of the most brilliant exploits and achievements of the Rebellion. The Jfofwich B'iUletin says: "It will be read with interest and pleasure by thousands of Americans." Cloth Binding, $3.50; Library Style, Tull Sheep, $4.50; HalfCalf Antique, $5. 50« The 15®ys in Blue, or Heroes of the Mank and File — Comprising Incidenta and Reminiscences from Camp, Battle-Field and Hospital, with Narratives of the Sacrifice, Sufferings and Triumphs of the "Soldiers of the Republic." By Mrs. A. H. Hoge, of the TJ. S. Sanitary Commission, Chicago. With an Introduction by T. M. Eddt, D. D. The story Mrs. Hoge narrates is one of the most thrilling interest. She confines herself to incidents which passed nnderherown 'bservati n, and these she weaves together with wonderful ski 11 and effect. The private soldier who survived the war will find his own experiences reproduced in this deeply interesting vol- ume; and the thousands who mourn a eon, brother or father as among the victims of rebel hate will equally welcome the work as a souvenir of the struggle so full of tender memories for them. Nearly 500 octavo pagss. Illustrated. Cloth Binding, $3.00. Cloth, GiltEdge, $3.50. The liife and Times of General R. E. ILee, with a full Record of the Battles and Heroic Deeds of his Companions in Aims— "Names the World v-ill not willingly let die." By a Distinguished Southern Journalist. Handsomely Embellished M'ith 30 Life-Like Steel Engravings, and a truthful representation of the Conflagration of Richmond. The Biography of the late lamented GeneralR. E. Lee is here given, replete with facts of interest never before published, and obtained/?'0»i the most authentic sources / besides which there are about fifty Biographies (names dear to each part of the former Confederacy). It is from the pea of Virginia's most gifted author, andis in all respeetathemostfinished, accurate and complete work of biographies ever issued. Nearly 900 pages. The New Orleans Times says: "It is prepared on the plan of that familiar work, ♦Napoleon and His Marshals,' by giving the lives of the great Southern Heroes, each an historical epi- tome in itself. Wo can recommend this work as the best that has appeared on the Southern side since the war. It should be found in every household where its members believe that earth knows no prouder ftoie than to be a countryman of Lee and StonewallJacksnn." In Substantial ClothBinding (gilt back,) $3.75* Embossed Morocco, $5.00* The liOSt Cause— A New Southern History of the War.— By E. A. Pollard, of Va. Containing a full and authentic account of the rise and progress of the late Southern Confederacy, the Campaigns, Battles, Incidents and Adventures of the most gigantic struggle of the world's history, vnth ."4 Steel Portraits. The counterpart of 28 Northern Histories, and is being patron- ized by thousands, eager to hear " the other side." Not only in this country, but in the British Prov- inces and throughout Europe (having been reproduced in foreign languages), has its character been established as the Standard Southern History of the War, and the greatest literary success of the age. The entire work has been written since the cluseofthe war, and completed in 1867. T62 Pages, Cloth Binding, $5.00; Library Style, Full Sheep, $ 6 . 00 ; Half Calf Antique, $8 .OO. "Wearing" of the Gray. — By John Esten Cooke, of Va. — Com- prising Personal Portraits, Sketches, Adventures and Incidents of the late War, with thrilling Narra- tives of the Daring Deeds and Patient Sufferings of the " Boys in Gray." The design of this work is to present a graphic and picturesque view of some of the most striking scenes, adventures ar.d personages of the late war in the South, with anecdotes and details concerning them, for the truth of which the author vouches — and of these he speaks as an eye-witness and participant, and not as one compiling facts from books. The liew Orleans Times says: "The work abounds in graphic descrptions, hair- breadth escapes, lively anecdotes, and such other matter as cannot fail to prove attractive to the general reader." 600 Pages, Beautifully Illustrated, Cloth Binding, $4.00 J Library Style, Pull Sheep, $5.00. Echoes from the l§OUth. — Comprising the most important Con- federate Government Documents, Speeches and Public Acts emanating from the South daring the late struggle ; from ofllcial sources. One volume, 12mo., 211 pages. Price, $1.25; Copies sent pre-paid on receipt of price. Liberal terms on large orders. ;■:& A'"-^.!