THE
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN DEVIL.
By ANNIE BESANT.
Among the many dethroned monarchs of the world Satan claims a melancholy eminence. Napoleon had his Chiselhurst, Louis Philippe his Claremont, but Satan now only finds a refuge in the most ill-furnished hovels of minds. His name, which was once terrifying as a whirlwind, is now regarded as a joke, and the fear with which he was once regarded is changed into mocking contempt. He is an absurdity who once was a terror, and the power which warred with God has now for antagonist only the shriekers of the Salvation Army. His road down hill has been rapid since he was formally outlawed from the Established Church. All will remember how a would-be communicant at Clifton disbelieved in the Devil but desired to eat the body and blood of God; how he was repelled from the Lord's table because he rejected the evil one; how he carried into the law courts his demand for the food denied him; and how he obtained a decision that belief in Satan was not a necessary preliminary for the faithful receiving of Christ. The Devil being thus declared unnecessary to salvation, he was no longer readily received in good society, and he has gone from bad to worse until he only hangs about very low neighborhoods and that principally during the night. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, Son of the Morning!"
The title of this paper suggests the mode in which the Devil is to be treated: he is to be studied as a natural product, and just as the place of an animal is settled by studying it in the light of comparative anatomy, and its descent is traced by the study of its embryology, of its rudimentary organs, etc., so will the place of the Christian Devil be settled by studying him in the light of comparative mythology, and his descent be traced by seeking his embryonic form, his many now rudimentary organs, his gradual development, in a word by studying his evolution.
The belief in a devil, in one evil spirit, is a result of partial civilisation. As Theism grows from Fetichism, through Polytheism, to Monotheism, so does Devilism grow
