“I wish you to explain,” said Jack, who that moment entered the room,—“I wish you to explain how it is, if Satan is as powerful, and does as many marvellous things as you pretend, that they who give themselves up soul and body to him, always fail at last. Your mighty sorcerers and magicians always find their master failing them when it comes to the pinch. Ninety-nine times the devil enables the sorcerer to open the prison doors, to become invisible to the sight or impervious to the sword of his enemies, to overwhelm them, or to escape them by flying away through the keyhole; but the hundredth time fails him, and leaves him to be captured, to confess his crimes, and to be burnt alive. According to all accounts, your witches are the most miserable old hags one ever meets—wretched old crones, living in the most abject poverty, and hardly able to procure the food necessary to keep soul and body together. The devil never comes when wanted, never makes his appearance before competent and credible witnesses. He performs his wonders in the dark; and when one would really prove the fact of his presence, he is away, and nobody can get a glimpse of him.” “And what else,” replied Mr. Merton, “should be expected of the devil? And yet I would not treat your objection lightly, for it is one which has at times raised doubts in my own mind, and it makes me rather sceptical as to most of the tales of witchcraft, ghosts, and hobgoblins I hear or read of. But you should bear in mind that the devils are capricious as well as malicious, or rather, their malice itself is full of caprice. The devil, in all his invasions, seeks only to get himself worshipped, and to ruin souls. When he has made a soul his slave, made sure of its destruction in hell, his end is answered. He is a liar from the beginning, and the father of lies. He is the inveterate enemy of truth, and if he sometimes tells it, it is because compelled by a higher power; or if now and then, of his own accord, it is only because it serves his purpose of deception better than falsehood. If he sometimes keeps his promises, and seems to do the best he can for his slaves, it is for the same reason. Then, again, he is not omnipotent, he is not the supreme Lord; and however powerful he may be, there is One mightier than he, who can thwart him when he pleases. He can, as I often say, go only the length of his chain. It may comport with the purposes of God to suffer him to do many marvellous deeds, but never to suffer him to do them so uniformly or in such a manner that his victims shall not be able to detect the impostor, and know, if they will, that it is a foul and lying spirit they follow. Satan’s delight is in deceiving, and he delights as much in deceiving those already his slaves, as those he would make such; and God so orders it, that his deceptions shall be discoverable by all not wilfully blind.