practised under various forms of idolatry; but from what is perpetrated in the dark places of the earth at this day, we may judge of Satan's habitual proceedings among his worshipers. Human sacrifices, accompanied with circumstances of most horrible barbarity, are common in many parts of the world: mothers are required to butcher their tender infants, children their aged parents, and vast numbers of all ages are frequently put to death, as an offering to the spirit of a deceased ruler, or to be attendants on his soul in another world. Self-immolation is enforced as a sacred duty; and if not willingly performed, the reluctant victim is murdered. On harmless animals most cruel tortures are inflicted, as an acceptable service to the devils whom the heathen seek to propitiate; and in that nominally Christian system, of which the " coming is after the working of Satan," (2 Thess. ii. 9,) whose teachers are "seducing spirits," and its distinguishing requirements "doctrines of devils," (1 Tim. iv. 1,) we find the Satanic feature of wanton cruelty developed in full deformity. The rack is its main instrument of conversion to an idolatrous faith; and the flames its award to such as will not venture to encounter everlasting burnings. Massacre on a scale only bounded by the number of its defenceless victims, and the limits of its physical power, persecution, to the utmost stretch of human endurance, these are the lot of its opponents; while for the members of its own system it has the discipline of the scourge, of famishing hunger, of bodily austerity in every imaginable shape; and a merciless rending apart of every tie that God

has formed to sweeten the cup of human life. In all this we should recognise the cruel hand of him who was a murderer from the beginning, even had not the word of God so distinctly set him forth as the framer and upholder of Popery, as to warrant our numbering among Scripture evidences, what the prophetic page describes in the passages already quoted from St. Paul; and in those of John, when describing the Beast which he saw rising out of the sea. "He says, "The dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority." Rev. xiii. 2. In the preceding chapter we are told (ver. 9) that the dragon is "that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world :” and again, of the Beast to whom he gave his power, it is written, "It was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them,” xiii. 7. The predictions of the Bible are no less certain than its historical relations; and if we desire an instance of the sustained cruelty of Satan, manifested through a space of twelve hundred years and upwards, not among barbarous people who never heard of the true God, but in the heart, and throughout .he extent of Christendom, we must look at Popery-the Babylon of prophecy, concerning whom it is said, "Babylon the great . . . is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." Rev. xviii. 2.

The cases of those possessed with devils is represented as being nearly always one of great suffering. The exceptions seem to be those instances where the infernal inmate was a welcome confederate, for the

sake of such supernatural powers as he could confer. Such was the "spirit of divination" possessed by the damsel who followed Paul and Silas; the "familiar spirits" that enabled Simon Magus, Elymas, and others, to practise sorcery; and the awful entering in of Satan himself into Judas Iscariot, who went and completed his tremendous bargain under that devilish influence. Among the many descriptions of demoniacal cruelty inflicted on the poor creatures who were brought to our Lord or to his apostles, we may notice the daughter of the Syro-Phenician woman, who was "grievously vexed with a devil." Matt. xv. 22. The poor boy whose father gave so piteous a description of his sufferings, afterwards confirmed it in the presence of our Lord. “Master, I have brought unto thee my son which hath a dumb spirit; and whensoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away." Mark ix. 17, 18. "And oftentimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him," v. 22. "And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him, and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, he is dead ;” v. 26. The description also, as given by the same evangelist, of the demoniac from whom the devils passed into the swine, is very awful. "A man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains because he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he

was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones." Mark v. 2-5. Again, we read, "There was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself." Luke xiii. 11: and that this was a visitation of Satanic cruelty, our Lord in express terms reveals. "Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound lo these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?" v. 16. We read, too, of "one pos ́sessed with a devil, blind and dumb." Matt. xii. 22. The last act of these fiends was always, when permitted, a cruel one: they "rent" or "threw down" their victims, when departing, though restrained from fatally injuring them. Thus it was with the man in the synagogue, who had a spirit of an unclean devil, which testified, in evident terror, to our Lord's divinity; for he "cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him down in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not." Luke iv. 33, 34, 35. When Paul, through the abundance of revelations vouchsafed to him, was in danger of becoming puffed up, a chastening hand was laid on him, by giving Satan power to afflict his body, in some way not particularized. He calls it "a thorn in the flesh; the messenger of Satan sent to buffet me.” 2 Cor. xii. 7. It was grievous, for he thrice besought the Lord,

that it might depart from him: it was visible, and humbling to human pride, for he gratefully mentions it to the praise of the Galatians, that it did not lessen their regard for him, or their reverence for his mission. "Ye know how, through infirmity of the flesh, I preached the gospel to you at first: and my temptation, which was in my flesh, ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus." Gal. iv. 13, 14.

that

In all these, and many other instances, we find, the power of Satan, to whatever extent it is carried, is always cruelly oppressive: Peter testifies of our Lord Jesus, that he "went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil." Acts x. 38. But grievous as were the sufferings that Satan inflicted on the bodies of those over whom he had liberty to tyrannize, they were as nothing compared with what he can do when assaulting the mind. We do not here speak of such as knowingly act upon his vile sugges tions, but of those who are the unconscious, or defenceless objects of his covert attacks. On this subject the book of God does not furnish us with descriptions of many individual cases; it rather shows us the machinery at work, and enables us, each from his own experience, to judge of the universal results. There is not an impulse of our nature, nor a faculty of our minds, nor an inclination of our hearts-there is not a duty, there is not an enjoyment, there is not a trouble, but Satan both can and will lay hold of it to tempt, to harass, to oppress our souls. Hence, from age to age, every believer, how great soever his privileges, and