How the Devil came to be Prince of this world it may be impossible for us to say, but that he is so admits of no question, if we are to accept the teaching of Jesus Christ, and any one who will study the ruling principles of commercial life, of political life, of social life, and above all of international relations, to such an one it will become perfectly evident that the Devil is the one who is master of the present order of things. If we ever doubted before that there was a Devil, and just such a Devil as the Bible pictures, we can scarcely doubt it now, when we consider the action of the rulers of the earth in this present mad world war. How could beings so intelligent in matters of science and philosophy and economics as the present rulers of Germany are, ever be guilty of plunging the nations of the earth into this mad war? There is but one reasonable answer: because there is a Devil who rules the present Kosmos, or world order, and he controls the Kaisers and the Reichstags of the world and will until the true Prince comes, the Prince of Peace, our Lord Jesus Christ. III. THE CHARACTER OF THE DEVIL 1. _As to the character of the Devil, the Bible teaches us that he is a being absolutely wicked._ In Matt. 13:19 he is called, "_The Wicked One_." That is to say, he is one who is the personal embodiment of absolute wickedness. In I John 5:19 R. V. also he is called "The Wicked One." God is "The Holy One," that is to say the One who is the personal embodiment of perfect holiness. The Devil is just His opposite, the personal embodiment of consummate wickedness. 2. The Devil is to evil what God is to good. In I John 3:8, we read: +"He that doeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. To this end was the son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil."+ This does not mean that the Devil sinned from the very origin of all things and that he was created sinful, for we learn from Ezek. 28:15 that the Devil was created upright. The verse does mean, however, that _Satan is the original sinner_. The expression "from the beginning" is characteristic of the epistle from which these words are taken and does not necessarily mean from the origin of things (see for example verse 11). In a similar way we are told in one of our texts—John 8:44—that the Devil was a murderer from the beginning and that he is "A liar and the father of it." There is absolutely "no truth in him." So much for the nature and character of the Devil. IV. THE WORK OF THE DEVIL We come now to the question of the Work of the Devil, or How the Devil Manifests Himself, and What He Does.