My lips moved,—but I could not speak; the dim and dreadful thought that was dawning on my mind seemed as yet too frenzied, too outside the boundaries of material sense for mortal utterance.
“Be dumb,—be motionless!—but hear and feel!” he continued—“By the supreme power of God,—for there is no other power in any world or any heaven,—I control and command you at this moment, your own will being set aside for once as naught! I choose you as one out of millions to learn in this life the lesson that all must learn hereafter;—let every faculty of your intelligence be ready to receive that which I shall impart,—and teach it to your fellow-men if you have a conscience as you have a Soul!”
Again I strove to speak,—he seemed so human,—so much my friend still, though he had declared himself my Enemy,——and yet ... what was that lambent radiance encircling his brows?—that burning glory steadily deepening and flashing from his eyes?
“You are one of the world’s ‘fortunate’ men,—” he went on, surveying me straightly and pitilessly—“So at least this world judges you, because you can buy its good-will. But the Forces that govern all worlds, do not judge you by such a standard,—you cannot buy their good-will, not though all the Churches should offer to sell it you! They regard you as you are, stripped soul-naked,—not as you seem! They behold in [p 461] you a shameless egoist, persistently engaged in defacing their divine Image of Immortality,—and for that sin there is no excuse and no escape but Punishment. Whosoever prefers Self to God, and in the arrogance of that Self, presumes to doubt and deny God, invites another Power to compass his destinies,—the power of Evil, made evil and kept evil by the disobedience and wickedness of Man alone,—that power whom mortals call Satan, Prince of Darkness,—but whom once the angels knew as Lucifer, Prince of Light!” ... He broke off,—paused,—and his flaming regard fell full upon me. “Do you know Me, ... now?”
I sat a rigid figure of fear, dumbly staring, ... was this man, for he seemed man, mad that he should thus hint at a thing too wild and terrible for speech?
“If you do not know Me,—if you do not feel in your convicted soul that you are aware of Me,—it is because you will not know! Thus do I come upon men, when they rejoice in their wilful self-blindness and vanity!—thus do I become their constant companion, humouring them in such vices as they best love!—thus do I take on the shape that pleases them, and fit myself to their humours! They make me what I am;—they mould my very form to the fashion of their flitting time. Through all their changing and repeating eras, they have found strange names and titles for me,—and their creeds and churches have made a monster of me,—as though imagination could compass any worse monster than the Devil in Man!”
Frozen and mute I heard, ... the dead silence, and his resonant voice vibrating through it, seemed more terrific than the wildest storm.
“You,—God’s work,—endowed as every conscious atom of His creation is endowed,—with the infinite germ of immortality;—you, absorbed in the gathering together of such perishable trash as you conceive good for yourself on this planet,—you dare, in the puny reach of your mortal intelligence to dispute and question the everlasting things invisible! You, by the Creator’s will, are permitted to see the Natural [p 462] Universe,—but in mercy to you, the veil is drawn across the Super-natural! For such things as exist there, would break your puny earth-brain as a frail shell is broken by a passing wheel,—and because you cannot see, you doubt! You doubt not only the surpassing Love and Wisdom that keeps you in ignorance till you shall be strong enough to bear full knowledge, but you doubt the very fact of such another universe itself. Arrogant fool!—your hours are counted by Super-natural time!—your days are compassed by Super-natural law!—your every thought, word, deed and look must go to make up the essence and shape of your being in Super-natural life hereafter!—and what you have been in your Soul here, must and shall be the aspect of your Soul there! That law knows no changing!”
The light about his face deepened,—he went on in clear accents that vibrated with the strangest music.
“Men make their own choice and form their own futures,” he said—“And never let them dare to say they are not free to choose! From the uttermost reaches of high Heaven the Spirit of God descended to them as Man,—from the uttermost depths of lowest Hell, I, the Spirit of Rebellion, come,—equally as Man! But the God-in-Man was rejected and slain,—I, the Devil-in-Man live on, forever accepted and adored! Man’s choice this is—not God’s or mine! Were this self-seeking human race once to reject me utterly, I should exist no more as I am,—nor would they exist who are with me. Listen, while I trace your career!—it is a copy of the lives of many men;—and judge how little the powers of Heaven can have to do with you!—how much the powers of Hell!”