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 fulfilled: and
after that he must be loosed a little season" (Rev. 20:2, 3). "And when
the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters
of the earth" (Rev. 20: 7, 8). He who was the measure of perfection,
full of beauty and wisdom; he who made the earth to tremble; who shook
kingdoms; has been willing to be ridiculed by the world as a being
without reality, that he might, in the end, realize his own deepest
desire.

Again, his own subjects have strangely neglected the plain teachings of
Scripture on his real power and authority. To them he has been an
imaginary fiend, delighting only in the torment of unfortunate souls;
making his home in hell, and himself the impersonation of all that is
cruel and vile: when, on the contrary, he is real, and is the very
embodiment of the highest ideals the unregenerate world has received;
for he is the inspirer of all those ideals. With his own he is not at
enmity, and he, like the most refined of the world, is in no sympathy
with the grosser forms of their sin. He would hinder those
manifestations of evil if he could. And certainly he does not prompt
them; for they are the natural fruit of an unrestrained fallen nature,
according to James 1:14, 15: "But every man is tempted, when he is drawn
away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it
bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death."
"For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts,
adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness,
deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all
these evil things come from within, and defile the man" (Mk. 7:21-23).
The dying drunkard, the fallen woman, and the suffering of the innocent
are the evidences of Satan's failure rather than the realization of his
purpose.

His own terrible sin before God would not be condemned in the eyes of
the world, for it is that which they most idealize and praise. In his
sin he aspired to that which is highest, and proposed to realize his
ideal by his own self-sufficiency and strength. True, he has lowered his
Creator, in his own mind, to a