It must be kept clearly in mind that the powers of darkness can, in no sense, mean an ethereal, impersonal spirit of evil--or perverseness of weak human nature; but rather a Being who rules and commands legions upon legions of subjects--_demons_, each of them endowed with all the powers and gifts possessed when they were ministering emissaries of God. They are now "the angels which kept not their first estate." We have no way to estimate the size of this satanic army, marshalled for the destruction of the race and the overthrow of Christ's kingdom. However, we read in the tenth chapter of Revelation that two hundred million were turned loose in the earth at one time. Ten thousand were in the country of the Gadarenes when the Master entered there; no wonder the entire land was kept in terror, even though their incarnation seemed to have been limited to one man living in a graveyard. Seven demons were cast out of one woman. We should keep in mind the distinction between "the devil" and demons; there is but one _Devil_, but the demons are swarming the length and breadth of the whole earth. Just as God directs His angels in ministeries of righteousness, so this god of darkness directs his angels to do his nefarious will. There are feats so daring and important that the Devil, it seems, will not trust to his underlings. He engineered in person the temptations of the Master; he entered the heart of Judas, and caused him to sell his Lord, then commit suicide. The Bible undoubtedly teaches that Satan and his cohorts, having access to our fallen natures (which became so through his contribution of "forbidden fruit"--his great triumph in the Garden), are inciting this world to all the crimes known to our criminal dockets. Think of the train wreckers, rapists, incendiaries, white slavers, riots, strikes, grafters, gamblers, etc.; and as Paul has catalogued them: "unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, maliciousness, envy, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful." No one can consider this long, gruesome list of iniquities without a feeling that they originated, somehow, in the realm of supernatural darkness. The worst things that can be said of fallen humanity is its availability and susceptibility to the machinations of this past master of the Pit, whose only ambition is to rob the blood of its purchase possessions by wrecking the souls for whom Christ died. Our sinful nature responds to his touch; the wonderful gamut of the soul is capable of being swept its entire length by his skill. A master player on God's greatest instrument--His masterpiece. All the fearful deeds committed seem to be acts of volition, and they are; but in the dark background lurks another superior will responsible for the initiative. III LUCIFER