“Has the world ever been without devil-possession of one kind or another, varying infinitely in its forms, to blind and deceive those who dwell on the earth? What is sin at all but the work in men’s hearts of the devil and his angels, ever prompting, deceiving, suggesting? But where ignorance is grossest, and the light of God shines least, there he finds the readiest victims to listen to his seducing whispers.” She paused a moment, looked first at Eustace, with the earnestness that always perplexed and stimulated his curiosity, and then added, in a much lower tone, “And are we not to look for more and more indications of his powers, more manifestations of them in forms of every kind, in the days that are coming?” “Why?” asked Eustace, in a tone as low as hers. She clasped her hands lightly together as she made reply-- “Ah! because the days of the end are approaching--because the great day of Armageddon is coming upon us, and the armies of heaven and hell are mustering in battle-array for that awful final struggle which shall mark the end of this dispensation, in which the Antichrist shall be revealed--the man of sin, in whom the great apostasy shall be consummated, and whom the Lord shall finally destroy when He rides triumphant to do the final will of God, with the armies of heaven following Him on white horses. And will the devil be idle when he knows that his time is but short? Will he fail to send the strong delusion to blind men’s eyes, and make them ready to hail the Man of Sin when he shall arise? Men have thought that they saw him in the great conqueror whose power was broken but a few short years ago; but there is another and a greater to arise than he, and the devil is working now in the hearts of men to prepare them for his coming.” Eustace regarded her with keen interest and curiosity as she spoke. Her face had kindled in a wonderful way. In the liquid depths of her eyes there were strange lights shining. That she saw before her as in a picture all that she spoke of he could not doubt, nor yet that she hoped herself to be numbered in the armies of the Lord of Hosts when He went forth conquering and to conquer. He had never before met mysticism carried to such a point, and it stirred his pulses with quick thrills of wonderment and curiosity. “But, Bride, I would understand more of this,” he said very gently, so as not to rouse her from her trance of feeling. “How do you know that the days of the end are approaching so near? Why should not the world be, as many believe her to be, still in her infancy?”