As if he had been journeying through a wilderness of scorching sand, all that was left of the Archangel has long since evaporated. He is now a dry, shrivelled up, scoffing spirit. When, at the moment of scheming out his future existence and determining to become a Devil, he anticipated the ruin of his nature, he could not help thinking with what a strange feeling he should then appear before his old co-equals, Raphael, Gabriel, and Michael. But now he stands before them disgustingly unabashed, almost ostentatious of not being any longer an Archangel. Even in the days of his glory he was different from them. They luxuriated in contemplation; he in the feeling of innate all-sufficient vigour. And lo, now! They are unchanged, the servants of the Lord, revering the day's gentle going. He, the scheming, enthusiastic Archangel, has been soured and civilized into the clever cold-hearted Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles is the Spirit of Evil in modern society. Goethe's _Faust_ is an illustration of this spirit's working in the history of an individual. The case selected is a noble one. Faust, a man of grand and restless nature, is aspiring after universality of feeling. Utterly dissatisfied and disgusted with all human method and all human acquisition, nay, fretting at the constitution of human nature itself, he longs to spill out his soul, so that, mingling with the winds, it may become a part of the ever-thrilling spirit of the universe and know the essence of everything. He has been contemplating suicide. To this great nature struggling with itself Mephistopheles is linked. It is to be noted that throughout the whole drama there is no evidence that it was an object of very earnest solicitude with Mephistopheles to gain possession of the soul of Faust. Of course, he desired this, and had it in view. Thus, he exacted a bond from Faust; and we find him also now and then chuckling when alone in anticipation of Faust's ultimate ruin. But on the whole he is constant to no earnest plan for effecting it. In fact, he is constant to no single purpose whatever. The desire of doing devilry is his motive all through. Going about with Faust was but being in the way of business and having a companion at the same time. He studies his own gratification, not Faust's, in all that he does. Faust never gets what he had a right to expect from him. He is dragged hither and thither through scenes he has no anxiety to be in, merely that Mephistopheles may enjoy some new and _piquant_ piece of devilry. The moment he and Faust enter any place, he quits Faust's side and mixes with the persons present, to do some mischief or other; and, when it is done, he comes back to Faust, who has been standing, with his arms folded, gloomily looking on, and asks him if he could desire any better amusement than this. Now this is not the conduct of a devil intent upon nothing so much as gaining possession of the soul of his victim. A Miltonic devil would have pressed on to the mark more. He