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  Is the Devil a Myth?


  By C. F. WIMBERLY
  _Author of "The Vulture's Claw," "New Clothes for
  the Old Man," "The Cry in the Night," "The
  Winepress," "The Lost Legacy," Etc., Etc._


  NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
  Fleming H. Revell Company
  LONDON AND EDINBURGH




  Copyright, 1913, by
  FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

  New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
  Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
  London: 21 Paternoster Square
  Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street




  _With the fondest recollections and
  appreciation of one, "in age and
  feebleness extreme," who taught me
  the first lessons about the Being of
  these studies; one who contributed
  her all to the rearing of noble ideals,
  MARTHA M. WIMBERLY,
  My Mother,
  this book is lovingly dedicated by
  the Author_




Preface


It is the writer's firm conviction, in these days when the most
enthusiastic "bookworm" cannot even keep up with the titles of the book
output, that an earnest, sensible reason should be given for adding
another to the already endless list of books. We have enough books to-day,
"good, bad, indifferent," with which, if they were collected, to build
another Cyclops pyramid. The sage of the Old Testament declared in his
day, concerning the endless making of books; such a statement, compared
with modern writing and publishing of books, sounds amusing.

Every possible subject, vagary, or ism, for which a book could be written,
is overworked. Bible themes of all grades, from orthodoxy to ultra higher
criticism, have flooded the land. Especially is the iconoclast in much
evidence; he is free lance, and shows no quarters. Cardinal tenets of
Bible faith, so long unquestioned, are being smitten with a merciless
hand. Disintegration is the most obvious fact among us; nothing is too
sacred for the crucible of what is termed "scholarship."

But why this book? Let us take a little survey. Over against the modern
idea, that the race is endowed with all the inherent elements of goodness
necessary to its regeneration, there is a correspondent belief that _evil_
is only an error. When the race by social and mental evolution succeeds
in eliminating all the superstitions and false dogmas, the body politic
will be self-curative, like the physical body, restoring itself by means
of inspiration, respiration, exercise, sleep, food, etc., once the causes
of disease are eliminated from the system.

For several decades we have been approaching the doctrine which denies all
Personalism--either good or bad. When we repudiate the Bible teaching,
that the source of all evil emanates from a great Personality, the Bible
teaching of the Incarnation suffers in the same proportion.

The title of this book is a question, and one by no means strained, if
considered from the view-point of modern thought. We have undertaken an
answer. If by reason and revelation we can arrive at a satisfactory
conclusion, the gain thereby cannot be overestimated. If the personality
of Satan can be successfully consigned to the religious junk pile, our
Bible is at once thrown into a jumble of contradictions and
inconsistencies. The result will be even worse than our enemies claim for
it now. One of the late recognized writers on the Old Testament says: "The
Old Testament is no longer considered valuable among scholars as a sacred
oracle, but it is valuable in that it is the history of a people." _If the
Devil is a Myth, our Bible can be nothing better than historical chaos._

In the preparation of these pages, we wish to acknowledge with deep
gratitude the assistance of Mr. S. D. Gordon, author of "Quiet Talks"; Dr.
I. M. Haldeman, author and preacher; Dr. Gross Alexander, editor, author,
and preacher; Dr. W. B. Godbey, an author of great learning and extensive
travel; Dr. B. Carradine, evangelist and author; Dr. H. C. Morrison,
college president, editor, author, and evangelist; Prof. L. T. Townsend,
and Hon. Philip Mauro.

If the reading of this book shall bring to any struggling soul helpful
information concerning our common Enemy, we shall be doubly repaid for the
labour of its preparation. We send it forth saturated with prayer.

C. F. W.

_Madisonville, Ky._




Contents


       I. THE PROBLEM OF EVIL                         11

      II. THE ORIGIN OF EVIL                          16

     III. LUCIFER                                     20

      IV. DEVIL--SATAN--SERPENT--DRAGON               24

       V. DIABOLUS--DEMONIA--ABADDON-APOLLYON         28

      VI. THE DEVIL A "BLOCKADE"                      31

     VII. THE GREAT MAGICIAN                          34

    VIII. THE ROARING LION                            37

      IX. AN ANGEL OF LIGHT                           41

       X. THE SOWER OF TARES                          46

      XI. THE ARCH SLANDERER                          50

     XII. THE DOUBLE ACCUSER                          54

    XIII. SATAN A SPY                                 58

     XIV. THE QUACK DOCTOR                            62

      XV. THE DEVIL A THEOLOGIAN                      66

     XVI. THE DEVIL A THEOLOGIAN (_Continued_)        71

    XVII. THE DEVIL'S RIGHTEOUSNESS                   75

   XVIII. THE WORLD'S TEMPTER                         80

     XIX. THE CONFIDENCE MAN                          84

      XX. THE TRAPPER                                 89

     XXI. THE INCOMPARABLE ARCHER                     93

    XXII. THE FATHER OF LIARS                         96

   XXIII. THE KINGSHIP OF SATAN                      100

    XXIV. THE DEVIL'S HANDMAIDEN                     105

     XXV. THE ASTUTE AUTHOR                          110

    XXVI. THE HYPNOTIST                              114

   XXVII. DEVIL POSSESSION                           119

  XXVIII. DEVIL OPPRESSION                           124

    XXIX. DEVIL ABDUCTION                            129

     XXX. THE RATIONALE OF SUICIDE                   134

    XXXI. DEVIL WORSHIP                              138

   XXXII. VICTORY THROUGH THE VICTOR                 143

  XXXIII. THE ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT                148

   XXXIV. THE FINAL CONSUMMATION                     152

    XXXV. SATANIC SYMBOL IN NATURE                   156




I

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

    "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
    that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
    continually."--_Genesis vi. 5._


That we may appreciate this discussion, removed as far as possible from
theological terminology and theories, and get a concrete view-point, the
following head-lines from a single issue of a metropolitan daily will
suffice: "War Clouds Hanging Low;" "Men Higher Up Involved;" "Eighty-seven
Divorces On Docket;" "Blood Flows In the Streets;" "Gaunt Hunger Among
Strikers;" "Arrested For Forgery;" "A White Slave Victim;" "Attempted
Train Robbery;" "Kills Wife and Ends Own Life;" "Two Men Bite Dust;"
"Investigate Bribery."

This fearful list may be duplicated almost every day in the year. Our land
is deluged with crime, without respect to person or place; its blight
touches all circles from the slum to the four hundred. Wealth and poverty,
culture and ignorance, fame and obscurity, suffer alike from this Pandora
Box scourge. The march of history--the pilgrimage of the race, has enjoyed
but little respite from tears and blood. Those who strive to maintain a
standard of purity, righteousness, and honour, are beset by strange,
powerful, intangible influences, from the cradle to the grave. The child
in swaddling clothes has a predisposition to willfullness, deception, and
disobedience; paroxysms of passion and anger are manifested with the
slightest provocation.

Notwithstanding the barriers thrown up by the home and society; the
incentives and assurances for noble, industrious living, the <DW18>s are
continually giving way, so that police power and the frowning walls of
penal institutions are insufficient to check the overflow. The Church of
God, with its open Book, ringing out messages of life and hope at every
corner; the object lessons on the "wages of sin," sweeping in full view
before us, like the reel-film of a motion picture--do not seem to lessen
the harvest of moral shipwreck.

According to some recent police records and statistics, only about
one-half of the country's criminals are apprehended; if this is true of
those who violate the law, a much smaller per cent. of those who break the
perfect moral law, as related to domestic and religious life, are ever
exposed. When these facts are considered, the perspective for the reign of
righteousness is lurid and hopeless. The country has been amazed,
recently, at the revelations of how municipal and national treasuries are
being looted by extortion, extravagance, and misrule, on the part of men
holding positions as a sacred trust. Civilization fosters and maintains a
traffic which has not one redeeming feature; besides killing directly and
indirectly more men daily than were blown up in the battle-ship _Maine_.

Let us view the problem of evil from another angle: a writer on the
subject of food supplies says the earth each year furnishes an abundant
quantity of fruits, meats, cereals, and vegetables to feed all her
peoples; yet gaunt famine is never entirely removed. Even in America a
surprising per cent. of our people are underfed and underclothed. "Fifty
thousand go to bed hungry every night in New York City," declares a
professor of economics. The same ratio obtains in other large cities of
our land. Scenes of pinching poverty occur within a few blocks of the most
wanton luxury and extravagance. One lady spends fifty thousand
dollars--enough to satisfy all the hungry--on one evening's entertainment.
Oranges rot on the Pacific coast by car-loads, when the children of the
Ghetto scarcely taste them.

Nature fills her storehouses, and tries to scatter with a prodigal hand,
but her resources are cornered and controlled by a criminal system which
revolves around the "almighty dollar"--the root of all evil.

Are we to conclude that man's free agency is responsible for this moral
monstrosity? Or, to be theologically particular, shall we say, free agency
dominated by an innate disposition to evil: human depravity, original sin,
the carnal mind? Allowing the fullest latitude to the free moral agency of
the race; allowing the evil nature, like the foul soil producing a
continuous crop of vile weeds, to produce an inexorable bent, or
predisposition to sin, operating on man's free agency--have we a full and
sufficient explanation of the presence and power of Evil?

The carnal mind is enmity with God, not subject to His laws; but the
carnal mind is in competition with a _human_ nature, wherein are found
emotions and sentiments that are far from being all sinful: sympathy,
tenderness, benevolence, paternal and filial love, sex-love, and honesty.
Again, we rarely find environment as an unmixed evil. Notwithstanding
these hindrances the press almost daily has details and delineations of
crimes so fearful and shocking that no trace of the human appears.
Frequently we hear of a man, who has committed some dreadful outrage,
personified as "beast," "fiend," "inhuman," etc. A young man in his teens,
wishing to marry, but being under age and without sufficient means,
decided that if he could dispose of his father, mother, brother, and
sister--the farm and property would all be his, then, unmolested, could
consummate his matrimonial plans. Whereupon, armed with an axe, at the
midnight hour, he executes his "fiendish" plot. Another man, with a young
and beautiful wife, and the father of two bright children, becomes
infatuated with a young woman in a distant state; he woos and wins her
affections; he returns home to arrange "some business matters" on the day
preceding the wedding. This business matter was to dispose of his wife and
children, which he did; on the following night, led to the marriage altar
an innocent, unsuspecting girl. A young minister commits double murder,
and on the following day enters his pulpit and preaches from the text:
"Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable
in Thy sight, O Lord."

These cases are actual occurrences, mentioned for emphasis only, that the
problem of evil may be studied from life. These examples prove
conclusively that the problem goes deeper than human depravity or free
agency; both are accessories--conditions, binding cords, as it were, but
the jarring stroke comes from a mightier hand.

The unregenerated heart has been called a "playground," and a "coaling
station" for the headmaster of all villainies. It was more than wounded
pride and vanity that propagated the scheme of Haman, whereby a whole
nation was to be destroyed at a single stroke. Vengeance and hate are
terrible passions, but only as they are fanned by the breath of an
inhabitant of the Inferno can they go to such extremes. It was more than a
desire to crush out heresy that could instigate a "St. Bartholomew's Day,"
then sing the Te Deum after the bloody deed was accomplished.

We shall endeavour in the subsequent pages to throw a few rays of light,
in obscure corners, on the problem of evil through its multiform phases
and ramifications.




II

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL

    "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the
    Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out
    into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."--_Revelation
    xii. 9._


It requires but a casual survey of this problem to reach a conclusion that
its hideousness cannot be explained by any other hypothesis than the power
of an invisible Personality. When we scrutinize the footprints of the
race, it will be found that progress has been along a dark, slimy trail;
the infidels and philosophers who are loud in their boastings of inherent
goodness will have difficulty in reconciling this fact. All who think are
confronted with an ever-recurring question--yea, exclamations: why do such
things happen? What meaneth these barbarities, ravages, cruelties? Why so
much domestic discord, ending in ruin--so many suicides? Why do men and
women hurl themselves over the precipice of vice and deadly
indulgences--when even a novice might easily see the inevitable?

For a parallel we are reminded of an incident in war: log-chains were used
when the cannon-ball supply was exhausted; lanes the width of the chain
length were mowed through the ranks of the opposing army. These chasms of
death were closed up each time, only to be cut down again by the next
discharge. The pathway of ruin is thronged--the "broad road" is easy;
however, there is something stranger than this utter blindness: the
victims laugh and shout on this highway, paved as it is by the macadam of
crushed humanity.

Now, can there be found a rationale for this dreadful twist in human
affairs--this seeming unfathomable conundrum? We cannot believe that God
would create a "footstool" in which sin, suffering, and misery were to
abound; no such provision could have been in the divine plan. In the Word
of God alone we find the explanation of it all. The Word gives an
unmistakable account of an insurrection in heaven: "Michael and his angels
fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels, and
prevailed not." This strange warfare was inaugurated by the great
archangelic leader.

This "war in heaven" could have but one ending: the complete overthrow of
the disturber and his followers. They were cast out, and are, beyond a
doubt, swarming around this sin-blinded planet--invisible, yet personal
and all but omnipresent. When we remember that one-third of the angelic
population of heaven cast their lot with this chieftain, his strength and
personality can be somewhat understood. It is written: "The tail
(influence) of the dragon drew the third part of the stars (angels) of
heaven, and cast them down to the earth." In their relation to heaven, the
dragon and his angels met with irremediable ruin; now, defeated,
humiliated, maddened, doomed, this fallen archangel and his innumerable
myrmidons are filling the whole earth with every curse that can be
conjured up by their superior, supernatural intelligence. There can be no
room to doubt the truth of this hellish propaganda, as he is called the
"god of this world."

It must be kept clearly in mind that the powers of darkness can, in no
sense, mean an ethereal, impersonal spirit of evil--or perverseness of
weak human nature; but rather a Being who rules and commands legions upon
legions of subjects--_demons_, each of them endowed with all the powers
and gifts possessed when they were ministering emissaries of God. They are
now "the angels which kept not their first estate."

We have no way to estimate the size of this satanic army, marshalled for
the destruction of the race and the overthrow of Christ's kingdom