On the temptation of Jesus by the Devil, the Rev. Dr. Giles writes: “That the Devil should appear personally _to the Son of God is certainly not more wonderful_ than that he should, in a more remote age, have appeared _among_ the Sons of God, in the presence of God himself, to tempt and torment the righteous Job. But that Satan should carry Jesus, bodily and literally, through the air—first to the top of a high mountain, and then to the topmost pinnacle of the temple—is wholly inadmissible; it is an insult to our understanding.”¹⁵ It is pleasant to find clergymen zealously repudiating their own creeds. ¹⁵ “Pilgrim’s Progress from Methodism to Christianity.” I am not prepared to speak strongly as to the color of the Devil. White men paint him black; black men paint him white. He can scarcely be colorless, as otherwise the Evangelists would have labored under considerable difficulties in witnessing the casting out of the Devil from the man in the synagogue (Luke iv, 35, 36).This Devil is described as an unclean Devil. The Devils were subject to the 70 disciples whom Jesus appointed to preach (Luke x, 17), and they are not unbelievers: one text tells us that they believe and tremble (James ii, 19). It is a fact of some poor Devils that the more they believe the more they tremble. According to another text the Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter v, 8), though the Devil’s “doctrines” presumably include vegetarianism (1 Timothy iv, 1, 3). I am not sure what drinks devils incline to, though it is distinguished from the wine of the communion (1 Corinthians x, 21). Devils should be a sort of eternal salamanders, for there is everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels (Matt. xxv, 41); and there is a lake of brimstone and fire, into which the Devil was cast (Rev. xx, 10). The Devil has, at least upon one occasion, figured as a controversialist. For we learn that he disputed with the arch-angel Michael, contending about the body of Moses (Jude 9); in these degenerate days of personality in debate, it is pleasant to know that the religious champion was very civil towards his Satanic opponent. The Devil was imprisoned for 1,000 years in a bottomless pit (Rev. xx, 2). If a pit had no bottom, it seems but little confinement to shut the top. But, with faith and prayer even a good foundation may be obtained for a bottomless pit. The writer of Revelation, adopting the view of some Hebrew writers, speaks of “the dragon, that old serpent which is the devil and Satan” and following this, it is urged that the Devil was the serpent of Genesis—that is, that it was really Satan who, in this guise, tempted Eve. There is this difficulty in the matter—the Devil is a liar (John viii, 44); but in the interview with Eve the serpent seems to have confined himself to the strict truth (Gen. iii, 4, 5, 22). There is, in fact, no point of resemblance—no horns, no hoof, nothing except a tail.