“It would freeze your cowardly souls only to hear the spells, the incantations, the blasphemies I employed; the watchings, the tortures, the combats, I endured, before I brought Moloch and Beelzebub into subjection to my will. [pg 86]See there, how I have burned their names into my flesh with pencils of iron heated to whiteness!”
He turned back the sleeves of his robe from his white arms, and held them out. Upon one arm in great red letters was the word Moloch, on the other the word Beelzebub.
“It was dreadful! dreadful!—but henceforth they are mine.”
The serpent writhed and protruded his tongue. The leopard showed his white teeth, but dropped his yellow head between his paws.
“I have told you,” he continued, scornfully, “what constitutes your ambition. Now I will tell you mine. To me belongs the glory of having organized magic and associated magicians. I found them a horde of wandering hunters; I shall make them an invisible phalanx of soldiers. I have more than two thousand magicians, in seven different countries, who obey me as one man. By concerted action we have obtained the secret history, the hidden life of all the governors, consuls, warriors, kings and great men throughout that vast region. I am maturing my plans to get them all under my sovereign control. Other conquerors operate from without, by sword and spear and catapult. I conquer from within, by hope and fear and lust and passion and terror. Unseen, unsuspected, unknown, with legions of invisible soldiers, I shall get possession of all their treasures, all their palaces, all their thrones!
“Do you not see it?” he exclaimed, wildly, starting to his feet. “The lever which truly moves the world lies always on the spiritual side of our life. I advance from [pg 87]the right quarter to my designs. I shall subdue the souls and bodies of men. I shall possess myself of all they possess. I shall become emperor of Rome—yea, monarch of the world. Further still:—I shall advance from realm to realm, from sphere to sphere in the spiritual universe, marshaling around me my hosts of conquering spirits. I shall pronounce the Unspeakable Name. My own name shall become Unspeakable!”
While the magician’s imagination soared away in this flight of boundless ambition, his form dilated; a fierce red flush came over his face; his eye, fired with a baleful brilliancy; and the maniac stood forth the very impersonation of that Self-Love which is the moving and controlling genius of hell.
His hearers trembled at his words and manner.
He sunk back into his chair and leaned his brow upon his hand. No one disturbed his reverie. All were spellbound by the speaker’s enthusiasm. After several minutes he raised his head and continued in a subdued tone:
“But, alas! my friends! this glorious dream is far from accomplishment. If we had only to conquer the race of men, the difficulties would not be insuperable. But our fiercest fight is on the spiritual side. All are contending for the same prizes—power and glory. When we have beaten back the shining ones whom they call angels, our combat begins with each other; for each demands all for himself.