THE ENTERPRISING DEVIL

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, February 26, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 9

THE ENTERPRISING DEVIL.

IN several of our larger cities may be seen instruments which are a marvel of ingenuity, and of their kind are comparatively rare curiosities, musical instruments somewhat in the form of a church organ, but very different in their nature. They have a cylinder similar to the cylinder of a music box, some six inches in diameter, and four or five feet in length; but yet the instrument is not simply a huge, overgrown music box; it is more than this. It is provided with all the features of a first-class brass band,—drums, small and large, cymbals, triangles, fife, flute, clarionette, and a full set of all the different horns that are considered necessary to a complete band of martial music, all of which it plays automatically, with all the accuracy of living performers. A number of tunes are played by each cylinder; and as several cylinders are fitted to every instrument, it is enabled to play a large variety of tunes.

The instrument is furnished at a cost of about three thousand dollars, and discourses its rich music to all passers by on the street, inviting all to a free entrance, not only to behold the operation of its wonderful mechanism, which is so arranged that it can mostly be seen by the spectator, but to listen to its surprising music.

But when a person enters, in what kind of a place does he find himself? In a drinking and gambling saloon! Here, then, is an instance of the devil’s untiring enterprise. The young must first be made familiar with the sights and sounds of the haunts of vice, before they can be lured to take part therein. So these instruments are procured at an enormous expense, affording a sight well worth seeing and music well worth hearing, to allure thousands of feet into places where they will become accustomed to the stench of lager beer, the horrid odor of the whole catalogue of vile and adulterated liquors, the sight of gaming tables, and the sound of the ribald jests and oaths and blasphemies that rise from them. And then Satan well knows that in multitudes of cases the facts expressed in the familiar stanza will prove true:—

“Vice is a monster of such hideous mien, That to be hated, needs but to be seen; But seen too oft, familiar with its face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

Then he will have them fatally in his snare.

How many thousands will, by these devices, be lured into the ways of death! How many youth will, perhaps, by this means, and in such places, be induced to step on board the train of the “Black Valley Route.” They may at first imagine it is only for a little pleasure trip; but they will find themselves in, alas! how many instances, unable to leave their death-bound conveyance till they land in the drunkard’s hell.

If the devil can be thus untiring in his work, and thus enterprising to compass the ruin of precious souls, what efforts should be put forth by us, in whose hands the truth has been placed as an instrument for winning them to Christ. How much enterprise, self-sacrifice, energy, perseverance, should we manifest, in every appropriate and available manner to build up our gracious Redeemer’s kingdom, and advance his cause in the earth. Oh! let it not be said that the devil’s agents work harder to ruin souls than we to save them.