The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1888-11-29
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Weekly Discourse of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher
subjects; "Satau Om His
Travels"

fro in the earth, and from ,oaiting up and
do,on IN it."-Job l., T.
In 1872 was printed the largest book evei
published, namely, two huge volumes of neal
five thousand pages in small type, the authoi
Joseph Caryl. 1t was commentary on this
Book of Job, When it took year for tht
journey from England to India, the son o.
the author Of this commentary started
for India, leaving his father writ
for years, and when he came back tc
England still found his father writing
ON it Inever saw the commentary, but ldc
not wonder at its size because there is no end
to the interest of the Book of Job. am not
surprised that Goethe, tho unbeliever, took
from this wonderful book the opening of hi
drama "Faust," and the Mephistopheles OF
the great German was only the Satan of
Job. 1t seems that one day in heaven God
was on His throne and angels and mes
sengers came to report their different
missions. suppose one angel said: ~ was out
among the stars and saw one of them burn
down." Another angel, l imagine said: III
was off on stellar excursion and was pres
emit at the birth of new world" Another
angel, think, said: al was journeying five
hundred million miles in the wilderness of
immensely and l saw a meteor run down a
pauRt" Another angel: II was off and
helped at the inauguration of new race of
tciuSo oihiu tuC AMI VI
that mighty world in the southeast part of
the heavens" But while these good and
great spirits We're making their reports a
CHASTITY grizzly, h;deous monster from some
miry, sulphurous, filthy world, came into
the palace without wiping his feet,
and God asked him where and how
he had been occupying himself and this
greatest scoundrel of the universe made re-
ply with blazing effontery, and instead of
acknowledging any of the mischief he had
been doing said he had been an earthly PEI
destrian and had lived sort Of circumam..
bulatory, perpatetic life. And the Lord
said unto Satan: "Whence CONTEST thou"
Then Satan answered the Lord, and said:
From going to and fro in the earth and
from walking up and down in it.
This monster of my text has great varie-
ty of names, You know that notorious
villains are apt to take a variety of names.
Arraigned in Paris for burglary man will
give one name, arrested in San Francisco for
arson he will give another name, imprisoned
in Montreal for burglary he will give another
name So this creature of my text has many
names. He is called in sacred and proan
literature Abaddon, Apolyon. Ahrimanes,
Ianiel, Asmodeus the revenging devil,
Beelzebub the sovereign of devils. Lucifer
the brilliant devil, Diabolus the despairing
devil, Mammon the money devil, Pluto the
fiery devil, Baal the military devil, Moresin
the plaguing devil. He is called the father
of lies, and has for his children and grand,
children and great-grandchildren all false
hoods, receptions, frauds, swindles,
ff nnss 'aekb on and and subte er
whether enlightened by the Bible or in heath
endom, have noticed that there are baleful
and malefcent influences abroad that have
not their origin in the human race, and de-
monology is as certain as angelology. The
sword of Paracelus was thought to have had
demon in the hlt and there is now demon
in every sword hit. The ancients supposed
and satyrs and sirens and gnomes and
vampires and salamanders and undines and
hobgoblins The Talmud says that Adams
first wife was Lillis and that their children
were all devils. Two or three hundred years
ago demonographer gave the names of
ambassadors of evil which he thought
Satan sent to different countries:
Mammon, ambassador to England
Belphegor, ambassador to France; Martinez,
ambassador to Switzerland; Rimmon, am
bassador to Russia; Thannia, ambassador to
Spain; Hutgin, ambassador to Italy, and
that there was a Princess of devils by the
name of Proserpine. But what was mere
guess work of mythology or superstition
has been made clear by divine revea-
ton. We find that there is somewhere
monarch of all wickedness Ho has a
throne of power, and courters and armies
and naves and machinery of evil vast as the
round world He is the supervisor of all
mischief, and what he cannot do himself he
delegates others to do and as each one of our
race is supposed to have guardian good
angel, have no doubt that every human be-
ing has besiegng malignant spirit naggng
his footsteps and trying TO make him
think wrong and act wrong, an especial
devil, devil of fraud or devil of avarice
or devil OF uncleanness or devil of poor
nd ta,rt
resented as reporting to the Lord so | have
no doubt the evil spirits report to Satan, who
is the enemy of the whole human race, and
who has celebrity that makes fight
around the world n matter of a
second, and who marshals on his side the
forces volcanic, atm )spheric, epidemic, geo
logic, oceanic and cyclonic "And the Lord
said unto Satan: Whence CONTEST thou! Then
Satan answered the Lord and said: From
going to and fro in the earth and from walk
ing up and down in it."
Satan began his attack on this world long
before Adam and Eve We're created. While
believe the Bible record that the world was
fitted up for mans residence in one week, I
believe also the geological record that the
world was previously for hundreds of thou
sands Of years going through great
changes. The lumber for TIE house that was
to he built in a week for our first parents
may have been hauled TO the spot million
years before. This Prince of the Power of
the Air has been trying for all that million
years to dtmolIsh and use up this world.
The record is on the rocks He tried to drown
it with universal waters. He tried to burn
it up with universal fires. Then
he tr ed to freeze it into ruin, and covered it
with universal glaciers And for ages he
kept this world, before our first parents occu.
pied it, IN paroxysms and commissions, and
the remains of those struggles / have seen
ana Won have m ,r 4,
geolcgists hammer you have gone down
into the stone libraries of the mountains.
Yea, after the famous Bible week the
world had been fitted into Paradise for the
nome OF our sinless ancestors. Satan comes
into the Garden of Eden, not through the
gate OF foliage and upright in posture, but
crawls in under the bushes a snake, and hav
ing despoiled our first parents goes to
work to ruin Paradise, and does
the work so thoroughly that one
who recently visited the site of the ancient
garden between the rivers Tigris and
EGphrates, says the place is desert; rot a
flower an the ground so poor that nothing
but some date trees grow there, and
the miserable villagers from near by
are not so well covered up with their
rage as Adam and Eve were covere ND with
their innocence. So you see the Father of
lies for once told the truth when the Lord
said unto him: whence contest thoun' and
Satan answered the Lord and said: ''From
going to and fro in the EARTH and from
walking up and down in it,
In my text we have Satan on his travels,
and l am going to tell you some of the routes
he is apt to take. On his journey down from
the palace where he reported himself in
answer to the question: Whence CONTEST
thou. the first range of mischief
he may be expected to take is
the air. 1t was not witticism or a slip OF
the pen when Paul, in his letter to the
Ephesians, called Satan the prince of the
Power of the Air" l think it means that
Satan works through conditions Of the at
mosphere. The West wind is full of
angels, the East wind is full of devils.
Satan spreads abroad his black wings and
hurricanes and euroclydons and Caribbean
whirlwinds and equinoctials are Matched out.
He takes the miasmas that float up from
swamps and matches them into typhoid fe
vera He takes the cold blasts and matches
them into pneumonias and rheumatisms and
consumptions. Not only has he power in the
upper air where highest clouds float, bu,
power over the lower air which we breathe
and as We breathe nineteen times a minute
and take in three hundred and fifty cubic
Feet OF air in every twenty-four hours
and much of this air affects the
arterial circulation, you see what
opportunities the Prince OF the AR has of
communicating and despoiling and democrat
izing man. Through atmospheric influence
he clouds the disposition and rasps the parves