Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1873-11-07
why don't God Kin the Devil.

why uoh pou nlil tne DeNu.
Gerald Massey, the English poet, and
Edward Jenkins, the English social sat
irist, both lectured in New York, Sunday
night, and both, as fitted the occasion,
treated religious OF archaeological top
les The heading of this article was Mr..
Massey's subject, and the duties of Chris
tians as citizens, that of Mr.. jenkins.
Why don't God kill the devil is pretty
hard question, and at the same time a
very natural one. 1t is OF that class Of
posers which children stagger their pa
rents with. Despite the fne-drawn dis
tnctions OF theologians between causing
and permitting sin, most everybody will
admit that the old question remains
about as much Of puzzle to him now
as in childish days. To such Mr.. Mas
aey's theory may prove Of some interest.
The devil is not, as we suppose many
good people have innocently thought, a
Christian institution. He appears in all
religions, and the Jews from whom we
get our notions on that head, got many
of theirs in turn from the Persians, hav-
ing become, during the long period Of
the captivity, deeply tinged with Zoroast-
rianism. In successive ages the popular
notion of the devil has many times been
changed. He was once held to be good
being. The serpent was accounted to be
God, tempting men for their good. Va
rious nations worshipped good devil.
Then the early Christian theology made
him out to be a being expressly created
| by God to torment men. The Germans
belittled him into spiteful imp, or
slightly enlarged the ideal into the more
imposing but still grotesque figure OF
Mephistopheles. The devil was pretty
much dead in the popular superstition
however, when Luther and Calvin reha.
bilitated him. Even after this resuree.
ton he is now utterly deceased in Ger.
many, and if you allude to him among
Germans, you are likely to be rebuked
even by the children with the expression
Els giebt klein Teufel," and your own
faith in such an existence will be regard
ed with surprise, not unmixed with
amusement. Only in England and
America can the belief in a personal
devil be said to form part of the pop
ular creed. Even in those countries the
dispositions to etherialize the idea into
the personifcation of human tendencies
and passions, is very marked. Mr.. Mas
sey declares that the persistent, yet evel
varying myth of the devil in the mind Of
man, is but the evil shadow of self, the
constant devil that man has never beer
able to run away from. Man, not God
is his creator. Beyond this there is nj
devil, nor would it be easy to imagine .
more formidable one. As for the devi
of theology who has SO long served
| preachers as target for practice, and al
a lay figure to fill out the background
of their pictures, he does not need kill
ing but only ripping up in order to show
the saw-dust. To what extent our read
ers may accept these suggestions Of Mr.
Massey we don't know. Probably very
many will have little respect for them
for, as the lecturer himself said, there
are good many people who would fee
the world to be rather a hollow affair il
there was no devil in it.-Springfelc
Union.
| PETERsoN's MAGAZINE for November
is at hand. The principal steel engrav
ing, Crossing the Brook" is very beau