844 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



for our fall and exultant if they can ac- 

 complish it." This view invests our life 

 with "a greater seriousness and solem- 

 nity than we are wont to imagine " as 

 attaching to it, and makes us realize 

 how important it is "to resist the first 

 yielding to one who never becomes the 

 possessor of a human soul except hy its 

 own gradual and voluntary subjection 

 to Ms hateful despotism.'''' 



We have italicized the last few words 

 of the last sentence for an obvious rea- 

 son. If any "human soul " has " grad- 

 ually and voluntarily subjected itself" to 

 evil passions, what need is there to call 

 in the hypothesis of diabolic agency to 

 account for even the worst acts of which 

 the man may be guilty ? What says an 

 apostle? "Every man is tempted when 

 he is drawn away of his own lust and 

 enticed." The logical law of parsimony 

 forbids us to suppose anything beyond 

 this. What lusts are, we know; what 

 devils are, we know not, nor have we 

 any means even of certifying ourselves 

 in regard to their existence. Why, then, 

 frame hypotheses beyond all need for 

 them? Moral and physical qualities, 

 there is reason to believe, are inherited. 

 Will Dr. Lyman Abbott, standing in 

 Plymouth pulpit, say : " No, it is a fam- 

 ily devil that is inlierited ; the fiend that 

 tormented the father pursues the son 

 and the grandson " ? If he will not say 

 that, if he admits that a given indi- 

 vidual may receive by inheritance a 

 certain moral and physical constitution, 

 what difficulty is there in believing that 

 to this source may be traced the deeds 

 which mark for good or for evil that 

 individual's life? Dr. Abbott admits 

 that " we can not demonstrate the in- 

 fluence of an invisible spirit over man " ; 

 but neither can we, he proceeds to say, 

 " demonstrate the existence of an ether 

 whose waves produce the phenomena of 

 light." The difi'erence between the two 

 cases, however, is very easily stated. 

 The devils are not required to explain 

 any phenomenon ; we can get on per- 

 fectly well without that hypothesis : 



whereas, it was necessary to suppose an 

 ether, in order to render the phenomena 

 of light intelligible, by assimilating them 

 to those of sound, produced, as we have 

 discovered, by the vibrations of another 

 medium. We do not doubt, indeed, 

 that the amiable Brooklyn divine would 

 gladly throw the whole doctrine of 

 devils overboard, as not only useless 

 but hurtful, were it not for the sanction 

 which he understands it to receive from 

 the Scriptures. But if it is to be re- 

 ceived on faith, why mar the work of 

 faith by trying to show that it may also 

 be accepted on grounds of reason? 

 Faith is only weakened by such help ; 

 and reason, certainly, is not benefited 

 by being put to such forced labor. 



Take the case of Guiteau. If he 

 had a devil, why did no one of the hun- 

 dreds of thousands of orthodox believers 

 throughout the country cast that devil 

 out ? What do we read ? " These signs 

 shall follow them that believe: in my 

 name shall they cast out devils." Did 

 any one so much as try to cast the devil 

 out of Guiteau ? The only utterance 

 we distinctlj'^ remember as proceed- 

 ing from the pulpit at the time was 

 a passionate demand by the eloquent 

 preacher of the Brooklyn Tabernacle 

 for the hanging of Guiteau on a gallows 

 as high as Haman's. If Guiteau really 

 had a devil, it was certainly hard on him 

 that the faith of the Christian world was 

 at so low an ebb that no one cared even 

 to try to relieve him of it. Who knows 

 what an innocent and amiable person 

 he might have become if the uncanny 

 tenant could only have been dislodged ? 

 The American nation, however, adopted 

 no such theory. Devil or no devil, they 

 held Guiteau responsible for his crime, 

 and hanged him accordingly. 



Dr. Abbott talks of the "gradual 

 and voluntary subjection " of a human 

 soul to the " hateful despotism " of a 

 disembodied fiend. But how does this 

 agree with the New Testament narra- 

 tives ? Are the persons who are there 

 mentioned as having been freed from 



