But it may be that there is more harmony between God and the Devil than ordinary men are aware. Unfortunately, we have not the advantage of great scholarship, but one erudite commentator on the bible tells us, in speaking of the Hebrew word Azazel: "This terrible and venerable name of God, through the pens of biblical glossers, has been _a Devil, a mountain_, a wilderness, and a he-goat."* Well may incomprehensibility be an attribute of Deity, when, even to holy and reverend fathers, God has been sometimes undistinguishable from a he-goat or a Devil. Goats and Devils are alike represented with horns and tails. We trust that profanity will not enlarge on this sad confusion of ideas. Not possessing great lingual acquirements, we adhere to the English bible, believing that religion can never be improved by mere common sense, or human effort. We admire, without understanding, the skill of the Missionary, who makes the word "Mooigniazimoongo" an equivalent for God in the Sooahelee dialect, and who represents "original sin" to the Ottomi Indian by the word "Teacatzintiliztlatlacolli," and who recommends the Delaware to repentance as "Schiwelendamowitchewagan." We do not wonder that in these translating thaumaturgic exploits God and Devil get mistaken for each other. God is a spirit. Jesus was led up of the Spirit to be tempted of the Devil; and it is also true that spirits are very likely to lead men to the Devil. Too intimate acquaintance with whisky toddy overnight is often followed by the _delirium tremens_ and blue-devils on the morrow. We advise our readers to eschew alike spirituous and spiritual mixtures. They interfere sadly with sober thinking, and play the Devil with your brains. The history of the temptation of Jesus by the Devil has been dealt with in another essay.** Yet it may be well to add the opinion of a Church of England divine in this place: "That the Devil should appear personally _to_ the Son of God _is certainly not more wonderful_ than that he should, in a more remote age, have appeared _among_ the sons of God, in the presence of God himself, to tempt and torment the righteous Job." * G. R. Gliddon's extract from "Land's Sagra Scritura," chap. iii, sec. 1. ** "Who was Jesus Christ?" p. 8.