The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1917-01-15


Flushed with victory and
lusting for more words to con-
queor, Rev. Mr.. Dyer renewed
the attack and wanted to
know where that devil idea
came from anyway. Receiv-
ing no satisfactory answer
he made the vaulted arches
of the neither region vibrate
again and again as he de-
manded i'm sepulcheral tones
"What about the Devil?'-
"What about the Devil?"
And then those dignified folks
began to see things again. Declar-
ing that he had extracted the devil
idea from the atmosphere, a high
school lad yelled for the doctors
help. Before the learned one
could get his hands upon him the
insidious monster got mixed up in
the dualism of one of the deacons
and was mislaid.
BY the help of little philosophy
and superstition he was expelled
from the deacon but before the
New Theologian could nail him he
again was on the move. And from
then on he touched the high spots.
In the garb of superstition he
was unearthed in Persian by the
brilliant one, but there the exiled
Jews appropriated him and fool
ishly lost him in the Old Tesla
Nnxt hn fnnn1 In "a
early church and here the doctor
gained fast on his track. BY the
most adroit juggling of the pas
sages through which he was sup
posed to pass, New Theology had
the beast so confused that he was
forced to take refuge in the brain
of Milton.
Driven from there by the mod
ern man with the aid of Bob In
gersoll and Tom Paine) he made a
flying visit to Dante's Inferno, but
the scholarly one was so close up
on him there that in sheer desper-
alton he broke into Martin Lu-
theirs house in the dead of night
and there raised cain. Clad in
his night shirt Luther engaged
him with an ink well, and when
the poor devil was seen John
Wesley was washing the ink be-
smeared one off the face of the
earth with the waters of time.
Faint yet pursuing, the doctor
gained fast and soon had the poor
beast all tangled up in the Gun
lspeakable declension of the human
race from moral heights to the
lowest depths of iniquity."
Here he got in his best ticks,
but fearing the elusive one would
again escape him, he called for the
help of his old college chum
Washington GLADDEN.. With
what is left of the old fashioned
doctrines" they made such united
onslaught on the weary one that
they had him taking the count in
no time.
Pausing long enough to remark
that the devil stood for "a great
reality in the New Testament" ana
that he was merely 1.-The sum of
evil in nature" the polished glad
iator put his foot upon the neck
of the myth of Christendom and
with a supreme effort-proclaim
ing is he did SO that he did not
believe in personal devil
despatched the imaginary one in
the most approved and spectacu-
lar manner.
Stepping back and assum.
ing a most dramatic pose as
he mOpped the perspiration
from his brow, the devil
hater concluded the show
with a most brilliant oratori-
cal flight, reaching its climax
with these stirring words:
1.-THE Devil is dying, God is
reigning above and something
else which sounded like
snow watch Tacoma grow"
Thus was the writer entertained
that Sunday morning in the First
Congregational church, and no
charge was made for admission
either.
We went to hear an intelligent
attack upon the Satan of Scrip
ture. We witnessed the amusing
farce of an attack upon the Devil
of Christendom. The man Of
straw was put up and knocked
down again and again. Every
creature of the imagin.
alton was assailed, and the myth
of ages-the caricature We all
know so well-was deservedly
about.
But the Satan of Scripture-he
who sealest up the measure of
full of wisdom and per-
feet in beauty" he whom scrip
ture reveals as prince a
liking" and ruler" he who next
to the triune God is the wisest and
strongest being revealed in the
Bible or known to the world; he
who possesses all the character,
power and wisdom of a
being whose hearing is that of q