“Ye peers of this profoundest gulf, princes of the hopeless gloom, if we have lost the place we erst possessed, when, clothed with brightness, we dwelt in those celestial, happy realms; yet, however great our fall, ’twas glorious, nought less than all did we hazard, nor is all lost—for, behold regions wide and deep extending to the utmost bounds of desolate Perdition still ’neath our sway. ’Tis true we reign while racked with raging torment, yet, for spirits of our majesty, ’tis better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. {85a} And what is more, we have well nigh won another world, a greater than a fifth of earth has been for long beneath my standard. And although our Omnipotent Enemy sent his own Son to die for them, I, by my pleasing guile, gain ten for every one He gains through his crucified Son. Though we cannot aspire to do hurt to Him on high who hurls His all-conquering thunder, yet revenge by whatsoever means is sweet. {85b} Let us then bring ruin on the rest of men who adore our Destroyer. Well do I recollect the time when ye caused them, their armies and their cities, to be consumed in horrible combustion, yea and caused nigh all the dwellers on the earth to fall through the whelming waters into this fire. But now, although your strength and innate cruelty are no whit less, ye have been somewhat listless; were it not for this, we would have long ago destroyed the godly few, and brought the earth one with this our vast domain. But know this, ye grim ministers of my wrath, if ye henceforth be not up and doing, valiantly and with all haste, seeing the brevity of our alloted time, I swear by Hell and by Perdition, and by the vast, eternal gloom, that upon you, yourselves, my ire first shall fall, with pain the like of which the oldest amongst you hath never proved.” Whereupon he frowned until the court became sevenfold darker than before. Next him, Moloch one of the infernal potentates, stood up, and after making due obeisance to his king, spake thus:—“Oh Emperor of the Sky, great ruler of the darkness, none ever doubted my desire to practice utmost bale and cruelty, for that has always been my pleasure; no sound was more delightful to mine years than the shrieks of children perishing in the flames outside Jerusalem, where in former days they were sacrificed to me. And also after our crucified foe had returned to his celestial home, I, during the reigns of ten emperors, continued as long as it availed me, slaying and burning his followers in my attempt to sweep the Christians off the face of the earth. And afterwards in Paris, in England, and in several other places, did I cause many a massacre of them; but what have we gained? The tree whose branches are lopped off grows but the quicker; we snarl without the power of biting.”