“Ah, poor Devil!” exclaimed the preacher, “and he usually so very successful! but he was quite unsuccessful that day. And, now, it was night, and he was scudding about, like a bird of prey, upon his black wings, and pouring forth his screams of rage. But he passed through another little Welsh village, the white cottages gleaming out in the white moonlight on the sloping hillside. And there was a cottage, and in the upper room there was a faint light trembling, and ‘Oh,’ said the Devil to himself, ‘Devil, thou hast been a very foolish Devil to-day, and there, in that room, where the lamplight is, old Williams is slowly, surely wasting away. Over eighty, or I am mistaken; not much mind left; and he has borne the burden and heat of the day, as they call it. Thanks to me, he has had a hard time of it; he has had very few mercies to be thankful for; he has not found serving God, I think, a very profitable business. Come, cheer up, Devil, it will be a grand thing if thou canst get him to doubt a bit, and then to despair a bit, and then to curse God, and die; that will make up for this day’s losses.’ “Then he entered the room; there was the old man lying on the poor bed, and his long, thin, wasted hands and fingers lying on the coverlid; his eyes closed, the long silvery hair falling over the pillow. Now, Satan, make haste, or it will be too late; the hour is coming, there is even a stir in every room in the house: they seem to know that the old man is passing. But as Satan himself moved before the bed, to dart into the mind of the old man, the patriarch rose in bed, stretched forth his hands, and pinned his enemy to the wall, as he exclaimed, ‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me; Thou preparest a table before me, in _the presence of mine enemy_; Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over; goodness and mercy, all the days of my life, dwell in the house of my God for ever.’ Oh, _that_ was a fearfully dry place! The old man sank back, it was all over; those words beat Satan down to the bottom of his own bottomless pit, glad to escape from such confusion and shame, and exclaiming, ‘I will return to the place from whence I came, for this is too dry for me.’” This will, no doubt, be thought, by many, to be strange preaching; many would even affect to despise it,—perhaps would even regard it as a high compliment were we to say, they would feel exceedingly puzzled even if, by way of a change, they were called upon to use it. It appears, however, to have been a style exceedingly fascinating to the Welsh mind of that day; it told, it stirred up suggestions, awakened thoughts, and reclaimed and converted character; and we need not, therefore, stay to attempt any vindication of it.