Again I turn over the pages of the old book, and once again the form of the beast has changed and he appears before me in the guise of a fox. It is our Master's name for the foe. And who has not known the beast when he has assailed the soul in the manner of a fox? It is the assault of cunning, when things are made to appear in semblance what they are not in spirit and in truth. Nay, it is the very art of foxiness that the fox itself is made to look like a goose, and the wolf is given the appearance of a lamb. Vice is dressed up like virtue. Falsehood moves about in white robes and innocently accosts us in the dress of a white lie. License tricks itself out as gaiety. Sin clothes itself in the fashions of the hour and hides its talons in silks. I say this is the very genius of the fox,--he makes you think you are having converse with a harmless old goose! Who has not known the fox when he cunningly tried to persuade us that the devil was God, and that hell was heaven, and that death was.... But, O no, he never mentions death! In his scheme it is part of the trick that death shall never be known. The old fox! And yet, in spite of fox and lion and serpent, there were those beside the sea of glass "who had gotten the victory over the beast." Let me lead you further, for a moment or two, into the pages of a wider literature, and let it be into the pages of Dante and John Bunyan. In his immortal book Dante tells us that when he turned his feet to the pilgrim road he was successively confronted by three beasts which sought to stop his journey. And first he met a leopard: "And lo! just as the sloping side I gained, A leopard, subtle, lithe, exceeding fleet, Whose skin full many a dusky spot did stain; Nor did she from before my face retreat; Nay, hindered so my journey on the way, That many a time I backward turned my feet." The leopard which confronted Dante was the symbol of sensuous beauty which sought to block his road and ensnare his feet. Next he was confronted by a lion: "Yet o'er me, spite of this, did terror creep-- From aspect of a lion drawing near. He seemed as if upon me he would leap, With head upraised and hunger fierce and wild, So that a shudder through the air did sweep." The lion was to Dante the symbol of worldly pride. And next he met a wolf: "A she-wolf, with all ill-greed defiled, Laden with hungry leanness terrible." And the wolf was to Dante the lean symbol of a hungry greed; it was the beastly type of avarice. And who has not shared the experience of Dante on his own road and encountered the leopard, the lion and the wolf?... And yet there were those before the sea of glass who had got the victory over the beast.