error's own nature and methods. This malicious animal instinct (of which the dragon is the type) seeks to kill even earth's fellow-mortals, morally and physically, and worse still, then to charge the innocent with the crime. This last infirmity of sin will sink its perpetrator into a night without a star.
The author is convinced that the accusations against Jesus of Nazareth, and even his crucifixion, were Malicious barbarity. instigated by the criminal instinct here described. The Revelator speaks of Jesus as the Lamb of God, and of the dragon as warring against innocence. Since Jesus must be tempted in all points, he, the immaculate, met and conquered sin in every form. The brutal barbarity of his foes could emanate from no other source except the highest degree of human depravity. Jesus “opened not his mouth.” The spiritual idea paused before the tribunal of mortal mind, unloosed, in order that this false claim of mind in matter might secretly defy immortal Mind, until the majesty of Truth should be demonstrated in Science.
From Genesis to the Apocalypse, sin, sickness, and death, envy, hatred, and revenge, — all evil, — are typified Doom of the dragon. by a serpent, or animal subtlety. Jesus said, quoting a line from the Psalms, “They hated me without a cause.” The serpent is perpetually close upon the heel of harmony. It pursues with hatred the spiritual idea, from the beginning to the end. In Genesis, this allegorical, talking serpent typifies mortal mind, “more subtle than any other beast of the field.” In the Apocalypse, when nearing its doom, its evil increases, and it becomes the great red dragon, swollen with sin, inflamed with war against Spirit, and ripe for
