Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1888-11-24

Vi our race is supposed to have u
guardian good angel, | have no doubt that
every human being has a besieeing ma.
ilgnant spirit nagging his footsteps and
trying to make him think wrong and act
wrong, an especial devil, a devil of fraud
or a devil OF avarice or adevil of unclean-
ness or a devil of poor health, and as in
my text the spirits are represented as re-
porting 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 a celebrity that makes flight
around the world the matter Of a second,
and who marshals on his side the forces
volcanic, atmospheric, epidemic, geologic,
oceanic and cyclonic. And the Lord
said unto Satan: Whence contest thoug
Then Satan answered the Lord and said;
From going to and fro in the earth and
from walking up and down t.
Satan began his attack on this world
long before Adam and Eve were created.
While | believe The Bible record that the
world was fitted up for mans residence
in one week, | believe also the geological
record that the world was previously for
hundreds Of thousands of years going
through great changes. The lumber for
the house that was to be built in a week
for our first may have been hauled
to the spot a million years before. This
prince of the power or the air has been
trying for all that million years to dcmol-
ish 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 tried to
freeze it into ruin, and covered it with
universal glacier. And for ages he kept
this world before VI first parents occu-
pied it in paroXysms and commissions, and
the remains of those struggles have seen,
and you have seen in museums, or
if with biologists hammer you
have gore down into the stone libraries
Of the mountains. Yea, after the famous
Bible week the world had been fitted
into a paradise for the home of our sim
less ancestors. Satan comes into the
Garden Of Eden, not through the gate Of
foliage and upright in posture, but crawls
IN undo the bushes a snake, and having
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 Euphrates says the
place is a desert; not a flower, and the
ground SO poor that nothing but some
date trees grow there, and the miserable
villagers from nearby are not go well
covered up with their rags as Adam and
Eve were covered up with their limo
cencc. So you see the father of lies for
once told the truth when the Lord said
unto him: Whence contest thou?' and
Satan answered the Lord and said:
From going to and fro IN the earth, and
from walking up and down in it."
sATAN's ROUTES.
In my text we have Satan on his travels,
and | am going to tell you some of the
routes he is apt to take. On his way
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 a 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" | think il means
that Satan works through conditions Of
the atmosphere. 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 whirlw'nds and ~equinoctials
are hatched out. Hetakesth miasmas that
float up from swamps and matches them
into typhoid fevers. he takes the cold
blasts and matches them into pneumonias,
and rheumatisms, and c~onsumptions. Not
only has he power in the upper air where
highest clouds float, but power over the
lower air which we breathe, and as we
breathe nineteen times a minute and take
in $50 cubic feet of air in every twenty
GA,, -,,,, n,,I ,,,.h 81 thfn DIV ofT,nt1
the ~arterial circulation, you see what OPP
p%ortunities the prince of the air has of
communicating and despoiling and demon
alizing IA man. Through atmospheric in
iuence he clouds the disposition and rasps
the nerves and covers the best of people
witE religious dependency, as in the case
of Edward Payson and William Cowper,
and that beloved apostle of evangelism,
James w. Alexander. His great delight
is to have the air Of churches vitiated
and in that way dulls the preacher and
stupefies the people and sees TO it that the
atmosphere Of not more than II out of
a hundred churches is fit to breathe, and
whole congregations, Sabbath by Sab
bath, are asphyxiated. Yes, he isworthy
of the title st. Paul gave him, Prince of
the Power Of the Air"
ANOTHER ROUTE
he is apt to take is through domestic life.
There is no greater sport for him than
c~onjugal quarrel. 1t does not make any
difference how long the marriage ringha
been on the finger of the right hand, he
will try to pull off the signet. He says
to the husband: what a plain wife you
have compared with what she once was?
Don't you see that the color has gone OFT
of her cheek and there are several wrin-
kles about her temples and q sprinkling
of frost on her locksY Besides that, you
have advanced in intelligence while she
has stood still or gone back.
How hard it is that you should
be chained to such dullness
and imbecilityT' Then he turns and says
to the wife: That man neglects you,
you have a right to be jealous. He likes
bis cigar and his club and everything bet
ter thar you. Why not get a divorce?
Marriage is only a civil contract anyhow
and not a divine alliance. Let me have
that ring, 1t means nothing and you
might as well give it to me-" The ring
is handed over to Satan and he tosses it
up and down Ike a plaything over the
mouth of perdition and says: II will
hand Il back, only let me have it a little
while" And he keeps tossing that ring
with all its sacred memories higher up
and further out, tossing aud catching.