“It is quite evident that you have been grossly misrepresented to me,” she faltered as her voice trembled with emotion. “I was told that you are the embodiment of envy, malice, and hatred, and vigorously opposed to everything religious.”
Satan looked at her in well-counterfeited amazement. “How wrongly I am judged by my enemies! How can I be opposed to all religion when I attend church and prayer-meeting regularly, and sedulously listen to the sermons and prayers while many sleep who claim to be better than I? You will pardon me, Miss Church-Member,” he continued, “but allow me to bear the light burden you are carrying under your arm, and let us hasten from this sickly atmosphere to the refreshing air beyond the summit of the hill.”
“You are very kind, indeed,” she said. “Please carry these books carefully, as I prize them very highly.”
As they pushed their way up the hill, I looked at Blackana who, with his eyes fixed upon me, sat as cold and motionless as a statue.
“Tell me,” I asked, “why Satan has falsified so greatly to Miss Church-Member.”
Blackana, with a show of uneasiness, answered interrogatively: “Wherein has he falsified?”
“Did he not just inform Miss Church-Member that there is no way of reaching the King’s Highway from the place where she had been standing? He well knew that there is a way opened by the Prince of the House of David. Why did he not tell her?”
Blackana again grinned horribly while my indignation waxed stronger. Then came his pertinent reply: “My master is about his own business; that is why he is so successful in his work. It is not his business to point people away from his kingdom; his delight is rather in leading them upon his own Highway.”
“Oh! for the voice of a thousand trumpets, that I might reach the ear of Miss Church-Member, and break unto her the words of truth and life. See how she walks on between those two fiends, ever nearing an awful destruction, yet vainly imagining, through the deceitfulness of her advisers, that she is nearing the place where she can, with greater ease, leave her present course and join her comrades on the Shining Path. Oh, that I could send a messenger, good and swift, in her pursuit!”
“Rest in ease, anxious mortal; she will get all necessary advice from her two friends,” replied Blackana with a sardonic grin.