Earlier text: TRUSTThe Spirit World and a Future Life
By Geo. W. Rine
IX. Prophetic Forecasts of Latter-Day Delusions in Process of Fulfilment
THE reader will recall that in our previous study we found that the Scriptures contain a surprisingly large number of prophecies in attestation of the fact that in the latter times Satan and his host of wicked spirits would ply their hellish arts “with all power and signs and lying wonders.” We learned that the father of lies would practise his insidious wiles with such extraordinary skill and power that, if it were possible, the very elect of God’s children would be taken in his snares; and that he will be suffered to go even so far as apparently to bring down fire from heaven; and that by the “miracles” which he shall have power to perform, he will DECEIVE “them that dwell on the earth.” Knowing that his time is short, he is even now, in “great wrath,” captivating the world with his last fatal, overmastering deceptions. The Great and Wise of This World Falling a Prey to Satanic Craftiness
The eminent English scientist and author, Alfred Russell Wallace, in his elaborate work, “Miracles and Modern Spiritualism,” says: “During the last sixty years evidence has been accumulating in every part of the world which affords demonstration that the so-called dead have never really died at all, but have passed into a new and higher stage of existence.” Professor Wallace goes on to tell his readers that many of the spirits of the departed are able to communicate with us, and that they find themselves much more alive than they ever were before. He alleges significantly that “we have all kinds of phenomena which are inexplicable even to the scientific mind, except on a spiritualistic hypothesis.” By “a spiritualistic hypothesis” he means the assumption that these “phenomena” are produced by the spirits of the dead. It should be remembered that when Wallace began his scientific study of spiritualistic phenomena, he was an avowed skeptic of the materialistic school, and was brought to a belief in human immortality solely as the result of the “signs” and “miracles” wrought by the sinister unseen powers back of all spiritualistic manifestations. Professor Wallace makes this significant admission: “Outside of modern Spiritualism I know nothing in recognized science to support the belief in immortality.” He might truthfully have added that he knew nothing in the word of God “to support the belief in immortality.” The great Italian scholar, Pio Foa, a professor in the University of Turin, asserts that “during recent times certain strange manifestations known under the title of ‘Spirit Phenomena,’ appear to offer an argument in favor of the continuation of life after death, in a spiritualistic sense.” Regarding the supernormal wonders of spiritistic manifestations which he has observed, he admits that “one can not deny that they are astonishing and, at the present state of scientific development, inexplicable.” True, they are unintelligible to science, but, as we have seen, the inspired word accounts for them in a way that can not be misunderstood. Another famous investigator of psychical phenomena, the French astronomer Camille Flammarion, makes the following explicit confession of faith: “That the soul survives the destruction of the body I have not the shadow of a doubt.” He also arrived at this expressed conviction, not by the study of divine revelation, but by observing the “signs and wonders” of Spiritualism. The greatest French dramatist of the past quarter-century, M. Sardou, who died last November, wrote not many months ago: “I believe that we are surrounded by intelligent beings who are different from ourselves so far as the material body is concerned, but who have certain qualities which correlate with our own. But as to the origin of these beings—whether they be the souls of the dead, or whether they constitute a world apart, a people who have never lived on this planet, I am not certain. . . . Personally, my experiences lead me to believe that these beings are probably the souls of the dead.” He adds: “I have seen and touched materialized bodies, hands and hair, and on one occasion, when I was sitting at my table, a bunch of roses, fresh and fragrant, fell upon the table.” Again it was the “lying wonders” of Spiritualism that inclined this literary genius to the belief in the heathen dogma of human immortality. Archdeacon Colley, of the Anglican Church, expresses in the following unqualified fashion his belief in immortality, and how he reached this conviction: “Of human kind there are no dead. Man is man because he is, as the Sanskrit ‘Mann’ suggests, the ‘thinker,’ or one that has consciousness of his being; which consciousness survives the change called ‘death,’ which is as but sleep to wakefulness. . . . For true is the Latin statement, mors janua vitae, death the gate of life; hence, continuous and immediate and conscious being, with no sleeping in the grave.” Why does the Rev. Dr. Colley hold to the musty old pagan aphorism, “Death is the gate to life,” when the Prince of life, whom Dr. Colley professedly represents, declares, “I am the6 WAY, the truth, and the LIFE.” There is “no sleeping in the grave,” says the Archdeacon. Yet the very Bible in which, presumably, he finds the texts for his sermons, gives us this bit of reasoning: “For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. . . . Then they also which are fallen ASLEEP in Christ are perished.” Again and again the sacred Book refers to the dead as being asleep. Dr. Colley emphatically asserts that he did not derive his belief in human deathlessness, from the study of any creedal or ecclesiastical affirmations, “but from the teachings of many years’ experience with those who have lived in this world, now dead and buried as to their earthly body, . . . from whom by many indisputable proofs, visible, audible, tangible, I and those with me have apprehended that there can be no gainsaying the fact that the so-called ‘dead’ are alive.” Strange indeed that the alleged “proofs” afforded by spiritualistic manifestations should have greater weight with a minister of the Gospel than the plain, unqualified declarations of Holy Writ! The well-known English scholar, Sir Oliver Lodge, affirms: “I am for all personal purposes convinced of the persistence of human existence beyond bodily death; and, altho I am unable to justify that belief in full and complete manner, yet it is a belief that has been produced by scientific evidence—that is, it is based upon facts and experiences.” The context shows that the “facts and experiences” upon which Sir Oliver grounds his conviction, are the marvels of spiritistic manifestations. Professor Lodge says further: “We have discovered that there is a new human faculty for communicating with the dead. The most important set of phenomena are those for automatic writing and speaking.” The late Dr. Richard Hodgson, the founder of the American branch of the Society for Psychical Research, after ten years’ critical study of the remarkable powers of the famous psychic, Mrs. Piper, bore the following testimony as to his belief: “Holding the hypothesis of telepathy from the beginning for several years, I have no hesitancy in affirming with the most absolute assurance, that the spirit hypothesis is justified by its fruits, and the other hypothesis is not.” By the locution, “spirit hypothesis,” Dr. Hodgson means the assumption that the preternatural wonders of Spiritualism are wrought by discarnate human spirits. As another convincing proof that the prince of darkness is deceiving “those that dwell on the earth,” by reason of “those miracles which he had power to do,” I insert here the testimony of the famous English publicist and writer, W. T. Stead, who proudly avows himself to be his own medium. He says: “The question, ‘Do the dead return?’ is best answered by asking another question: ‘Do the dead depart?’ I do not believe the dead depart. They are still with us, closer and nearer than they ever were before they laid down their earthly vestures of decay.” Now contrast Mr. Stead’s teaching as to the state of the dead with that of the inspired Job. In respect to the man who has passed away in death, the sacred writer testifies: “His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not; they are brought low, and he perceiveth it not of them.” Chapter 14:21. Believes That He Receives Letters from a Dead Son
The following pathetic narrative reasoning is given in Mr. Stead’s own language: “One last word. For the last fifteen years I have been convinced by the pressure of a continually accumulating mass of first-hand evidence of the truth of the persistence of personality after death and the possibility of intercourse with the departed. But I always said, I will wait until some one of my own family has passed beyond the grave before I finally declare my conviction on this subject. Twelve months ago this month of December I saw my eldest son, whom I had trained in the fond hope that he would be my heir and successor, die at the early age of thirty-three. The tie between us was of the closest. No one could deceive me by fabricating spurious messages from my beloved son. Twelve months have now passed, not one week of which I have not been cheered and comforted by messages from my boy, who is nearer and dearer to me than ever before. The preceding twelve months I had been much abroad, and I heard less frequently from him in that year than I have heard from him since he passed out of our sight. I have not taken his communications by my own hand. I knew him too well, and what I wrote might have been the unconscious echoes of converse in the past. He has communicated with me through the hands of two slight acquaintances, and they have been one and all stamped with the impress of his own character and mode of thought as any of the letters he wrote to me during his sojourn on earth. After this I can doubt no more. For me the problem is solved. The truth is established. And I am glad to have this opportunity of testifying publicly to all the world that for me doubt on this subject is henceforth impossible.” This experience is certainly pathetic, if not tragical. To Mr. Stead it is the final proof that the dead are not dead, and do not actually depart from the living. Unwittingly, yet actually, it looks as if Mr. Stead had given “heed to seducing spirits.” Is it safe to accept testimony which contradicts that which comes from Him who “knoweth our frame”—our physical and spiritual organization? The following statement is a succinct declaration of the faith of Sir William Crookes on the immortal-soul dogma: “The soul exists as a real entity independent of the body; it is able to act at a distance, without the intervention of the senses.” Sir William reached his conviction as the result of the many alleged letters he received from the “spirit,” so widely famous under the designation “Katie King.” One of the most enthusiastic and erudite members of the British Society for Psychical Research was the late Prof. F. W. H. Myers. After many years spent in psychic experimentation and study, he felt free to say: “I will briefly state facts which our records have, to my mind, actually proved. In the first place, they prove survival, pure and simple; the persistence of the spirit’s life as a structural law of the7 universe, the inalienable heritage of each several soul. In the second place, they prove that between the spiritual and the material worlds an avenue of communication does, in fact, exist. . . . In the third place, they prove that the surviving spirit retains, at least in some measure, the memories and the loves of earth.” (Italics Dr. Myers’s.) Dr. Myers then asks this strikingly significant question: “To what extent has any philosophy or any revelation assured us of this until now?” This question is designed to emphasize the fact that, in Dr. M.’s judgment, no philosophy or revelation has ever assured us that the human soul consciously survives the death of the body; but that now the miracles of Spiritualism have assured us of this momentous fact. What! Spiritualism proved man to be immortal, in direct contradiction of the inspired dictum that God “ONLY hath immortality”? 1 Tim. 6:16. Note, too, that Dr. Myers admits that no revelation has assured us of the deathlessness of man. Very true: but the Christian Revelation does most emphatically assure us that man is NOT immortal in himself. It adds, however, the blessed assurance that all believers in Christ shall have a resurrection from death to immortality; shall then have immortality as a gift from God through Jesus Christ. The following excerpt from an article by Dr. I. K. Funk, is almost startling because of what it suggests. It shows that Dr. Funk believes it possible and even probable that Spiritualism is destined to confirm the fundamentals of Christianity, and even to correct and supplement the Christian Scriptures, and finally to place traditional dogma upon a basis of scientific certainty. It does look as if even some of the very elect are destined to be deceived. This is the doctor’s remarkable deliverance: “It is said that the spiritistic movement in becoming scientific has struck a side-track and has ceased to be religious. Yes, but what if this side-track proves to be the main road, and that main road proves to be Christianity newly interpreted through the new intellectual light which is thereby revealed? What if Crookes and Lodge and Wallace and James and Hyslop should succeed in placing a scientific foundation under psychic communications, and these communications should place a scientific foundation under a future existence and make SCIENTIFICALLY possible and believable the birth and resurrection of Christ? Would not that be religious?” “And what if psychic research is the scientific unfolding of God’s plan in these later days when criticism is making it harder and still harder to believe testimony that has come down to us through ages of darkness?” “Put a scientific certainty under faith in the continuity of life, then it is easy to believe that the church will no longer hobble along on crutches, hobble even tho the crutches be of gold; but that it will fly as in the Pentecostal days. At every step of progress there is need not only of courage and of a lofty idealism, but also of common sense, of sanity—never more needed than to-day.” Mr. Fremont Rider, a popular writer on spiritualistic and other occult phenomena, recently affirmed: “*In fact there are now in all the world but one or two scientists of the first rank who deny the actual probability of the future life; while a large proportion8 claim that this life has been actually proved by the occurring phenomena of Spiritualism.*” (Italics Mr. Rider’s.) Mr. Gustavus Myers, in an essay entitled “Beyond the Borderline of Life,” says in closing: “One thing is clear, the mass of learned scientists are united in asserting that our souls or spirits do survive. Furthermore, there is now the very closest connection between religion in its real sense, that is, stripped of its formulas and dogmas, and these truths disclosed by scientific investigation.” Dr. M. J. Savage, the noted Unitarian scholar and writer, tells us that he is constantly receiving letters from multiplied thousands of persons, in the churches and out of them, eagerly inquiring whether psychical research has yet fully succeeded in proving the dogma of human immortality. While Dr. Savage is not quite willing yet to commit himself as to “spirit identity,” he admits that he is strongly prepossessed with the belief that the possibility of communicating with the dead (!) has been practically proved. We see, then, that the masses of the people are turning to the darkness of Spiritualism for light—going to empty cisterns for the Water of Life. How long will it be before the “spirits of devils” will have succeeded in deceiving “them that dwell on the earth”? Here let us revert to the divinely given assurance that “there is no work, nor device, nor KNOWLEDGE, nor WISDOM, in the grave whither THOU goest.” Eccl. 9:10. Dear reader, can God be mistaken? Is it not possible, yea, certain, that Professors Wallace, Lodge, Crookes, Myers, Hodgson, and Messrs. Stead, Flammarion, Sardou, and others, have been deceived? Whose testimony do you accept? These great thinkers, as well as millions of the common people, have come to believe in the survival of consciousness after death, in the very face of the fact that man’s Creator declares that when a man dies and returns to the earth, “in that very day his THOUGHTS PERISH.” Ps. 146:3, 4. Either God has spoken truth, or He has not. If He has not, He can not be God. But we all believe and know that God is. Hence it follows that what He says or has said is the truth. God is truth. The devil “is a liar and the father thereof,” said Christ. “He that hath the Son hath life: but he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life.” 1 John 5:12. Conversely, Spiritualism declares that we have life, even immortal life, whether we have the Son of God or not. Both can not be true. Our Lord commanded, “Have faith in God.” Whom shall we obey? Whom shall we serve? If Jesus be divine, a supernatural person, then all the theology of the New Testament follows as a thing of course. Again, if Jesus be not divine, then there is no authority in religion whatever. And, third, the deity of Jesus is necessary to the integrity of Jesus, since to deny it is to lose Him. Jesus did not drop accidentally out of heaven. He intended to come. He did come. He came in the nick of time—“when the fulness of the time was come.” He did not come without a reason. He came for a very special purpose. He came for an ethical purpose; namely this, “to save His people from their sins.” Paul becomes useful and necessary just here, for he explains the need for Jesus and the purposes of His coming. Paul expounds the doctrine of sin, finding in sin the philosophical basis of Jesus. But if Jesus is not a supernatural person then there is no authority for His ethics. As a matter of fact it is generally confessed that Jesus is a great revealer, founder, and teacher. But how could He be any one of these if He were not divine? In that case He could not know, He could not command, He could not enforce. He would have no authority. Jesus holds Himself as divine. He claims divinity for His words. This is the only theology that accounts for the kingdom—for its existence, character and extension in the world. The fact of a supernatural person is central, is dominating. The great fact is what Jesus was. The most commanding thing about Him is His self-assertiveness. He did not write history, He made it. The authority of Jesus is a protest against all wrong, and it is a prophecy of the coming of the new heaven and the new earth.—The Observer. 1. By what figure is the putting away of sin described?
By H.
1. By what figure is the putting away of sin described?
“We who DIED to sin, how shall we longer live therein?” “Reckon ye also yourselves to be DEAD unto sin.” Rom. 6: 2, 11. 2. As after death comes burial, what follows death to sin? “Are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him through baptism unto death.” Rom. 6: 3, 4. 3. As Jesus was raised from the dead, what assurance have we? “If we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, we should also in the likeness of His resurrection.” Rom. 6: 5. 4. What naturally follows? “Like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might WALK IN NEWNESS OF LIFE.” Verse 4. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did PUT ON CHRIST.” Gal. 3: 27. 5. What is a prerequisite of baptism? 6. How many must be baptized? “Be baptized EVERY ONE OF YOU in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins.” Acts 2: 38. 7. How necessary is baptism? “AS MANY of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ. And if ye are Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.” Gal. 3: 27–29. “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned.” Mark 16:16. Note.—From these scriptures we see that baptism is the public declaration that we have put away sin and have espoused the cause of Christ. As with the marriage ceremony, baptism shows to the world the stand we have taken. By it we proclaim that the old man of sin is dead and buried and the new man in Christ Jesus now walks among men “in newness of life.” 8. As baptism is a figure of death, burial, and resurrection, what method must be followed to be truly significant? Immersion, without question. The word “baptize” comes from the Greek baptizo, which is from bapto, to whelm; that is, cover wholly with a fluid, dip. (Strong’s Concordance.) No other form of the ceremony meets the conditions even as a figure. 9. What examples have we for immersion? All the detailed descriptions of baptism in the New Testament are of immersion, as the following scriptures show: “John was baptizing in Enon near Salim, because there was much water there.” John 3: 23. “Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway from the water.” Matt. 3:16. “They both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip.” Acts 8: 38, 39. 10. What place has baptism in the Gospel commission? “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Matt. 28:19. H. Try the Spirits
By Charles G. Finney
TRY the spirits by the Bible. People are sometimes led away by strange fantasies and crazy impulses. If you compare them faithfully with the Bible, you never need be led astray. You can always know whether your feelings are produced by the Spirit’s influences, by comparing your desires with the spirit and temper of religion, as described in the Bible. The Bible commands you to try the spirits. “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they be of God.”—Charles G. Finney. Faith Overcomes the World
By G. T. Purves
FELLOW men, God pleads for your outspoken faith. Without it, you are lost souls. With it, you may be more than conquerors. In your business and in your studies, in your private lives and in your public stations, let the words of inspiration ever ring in your ear: “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”— G. T. Purves. The Gain of Godliness
By H. F. Cope
GODLINESS for gain misses all the gain of godliness.— H. F. Cope. The Unity of the Catholic Church
ROMAN CATHOLICS have much to say of the “unity” of the church as a mark of her divinity, and claim that that union is to be found in their church. But all the unity possessed by the Roman Church at best is a negative union. It is the result of the teaching of superstition, the repression of personal liberty, research, and faith, the degradation of human intellect, the morbid fear of curse and anathema. The great part of the unity seen in Rome is the unity of superstition, fear, and ignorance. But where was this unity when the great papal schism took place in which St. Peter’s was vacant and three popes were each anathematizing both the others, and which was settled at last by the Council of Constance? That council deposed two of the popes at the wish of the third, and then deposed the third and elected a successor. Council then was above pope. How is it now? The unity which stamps a church as divine is unity of spirit, of purpose, of voluntary consecration to God. In short, it is a union in truth, wrought by the Spirit of God. 1 Cor. 12:12, 13. For this union Christ prayed. John 17. The unity of the Council of Constance, which settled the popeship in a single man, decreed the death of John Huss and Jerome of Prague, because they held the word of God higher than the distracted Catholic Church. The union for which Christ prayed, and which comes through Him, converted three thousand souls in one day. It did it solely, not by the sword of state, but by the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, the only weapon to which the church has a right. Reader, which unity do you desire? THE following under the above caption is taken from the Western Watchman, of Nov. 26, 1908, a Catholic paper, which defends the Church of Rome in all her persecutions. If the editor teach truly, is it not a fearful cruelty to persecute the conscientious “heretic”? “Whether a man be born in pagan darkness or in revealed religion, in any case he has within his breast a certain commanding dictate, not a mere sentiment, not a mere opinion or impression or view of things, but a law, an authoritative voice, bidding him to do certain things, and avoid others. It is more than a man’s self. The man himself has not the power over it, or only with extreme difficulty. He did not make it; he can not destroy it. He may silence it in particular cases or directions, he may distort its enunciations, but he can not—or it is quite the exception if he can—he can not emancipate himself from it. He can disobey it, he may refuse to use it, but it remains. To those who use what they have, more is given. At the same time the more a person tries to obey his conscience the more he gets alarmed at himself for obeying it so imperfectly. His sense of duty will become more keen, and his perception of transgression more delicate, and he will understand more and more how many things he has to be forgiven. And the voice of conscience has nothing gentle, nothing of mercy, in its tone. It is severe, and even stern.” Now God has given conscience as a guide, a monitor; but man may harden it till it is “seared,” insensible, “evil;” but its correction does not lie with outside human forces. Only Jesus Christ can cleanse from “an evil conscience,” and make the conscience good. (See 1 Cor. 8:7; 1 Tim. 1:5, 19; 3:9; 4:2; Titus 1:15; Heb. 10:22; 1 Peter 3:16, 21.) The individual Christian through faith alone can keep his conscience “good,” by (1) comparing it with God’s word; (2) by educating it in perfect harmony with God’s law; (3) by following its admonitions; (4) by keeping it pure in walking by faith in Christ Jesus. ONE incentive to Bible-reading is to look for beautiful passages. It is not the best incentive, but one which will develop and increase a love for the Bible. And it is not a search which is only occasionally rewarded with a gem of true beauty. The Old Testament records are dotted with bits of verse, oratory, description, and sentiment, worthy of place and rank with the so-called classics. Look for them, mark them, and dwell upon them. The Bible is the story of God’s dealings with His creatures, but those creatures were men, very human, and therefore just like the men of to-day. Jacob is an example. Follow his checkered life through. Tho it is filled with mistakes, he comes down to his death-bed loyal to his fathers and his God. His dying charge to his sons is touching: “I am to be gathered unto my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying-place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.” Gen. 49: 29-32.
Not in Egypt would the old patriarch sleep, but with his fathers in the land of promise, with Leah, the wife of his youth, the mother of his boys. O that every child of God to-day were so loyal to right! Then there would be fewer men and women asleep in a strange land, the land of sin, fewer following after the ways of the world, to the neglect of their own souls’ salvation and the salvation of their children. As did Jacob in the days of his strength would they wrestle and prevail. And as did Jacob would they come up to the hour of death loyal to God and right. Faith and Obedience.—There is no essential difference between the words. He who has faith in God will be obedient; and he only can be truly obedient who has faith. So really it is not “faith or works,” or “faith and works,” but it is the “faith which worketh by love.” Gal. 5:6. FROM the days of Adam on down to our day God has never failed to have brave, true souls who by constancy to the right have witnessed to God’s claim on the world and who have disputed Satan’s rule. To watch this great contest between the powers of good and evil and see how fiercely Satan has worked to conquer everything in sight and thus own and thus absolutely rule the world, and how all along down the ages the goodness of God has held some hearts true to Him amid the sin and darkness of the world, is one of the greatest pictures of history. Thrust out of heaven, Satan determined to make the earth his kingdom. He thought that when he overcame Adam and Eve he had secured possession of the earth, because these two had chosen him as their ruler. But Christ undertook to redeem man and to rescue the world from the grasp of Satan. This world thus became the great battle-field and the bone of contention in the great controversy, and here the struggle has waged for centuries. It is a marvel that He who had stood on an equality with God, had been the Creator of the worlds and the adored of all intelligences, should humble Himself to save fallen man. But Christ consented to leave His glory and His high estate and take upon Himself the form of a servant, to suffer privation, humiliation, and a degrading death. This is a mystery that the sinless ones of all the unfallen worlds desire to look into and understand. Indeed, the plan of salvation had a broader and deeper purpose than the salvation of man alone. God’s character was to be vindicated, not in this world alone, but before all the universe. When Christ was lifted up upon the cross He drew all unto Him. John 12:31, 32. When Christ came to this world in the form of a man, the whole universe watched Him step by step with the most intense interest as He traversed day by day His blood-stained path from the manger to the cross. All the insult and mockery, all the pain and death, were marked and understood as instigated by Satan. They saw Christ constantly seeking to relieve human suffering and sorrow. And just as constantly they saw Satan seeking to degrade and deprave the children of men. Satan claimed that God and Christ did not have enough love for man to endure suffering, self-denial, and sacrifice. In the life of Christ this charge against the character of God was now given the lie. The question raised by Satan was fully answered. By all throughout the universe the evil one was seen to be both a liar and a murderer. Watching the despotic power which Satan had wielded in his rule on earth, all the heavenly intelligences now realized what would have been their portion had they yielded to his subverted government. They rejoiced in that they had avoided this awful fate by remaining constant to God. Satan was being unmasked, God’s character was being fully vindicated.