CHAPTER XXIV.

LEFT IN THE LURCH.

Though I remained an invalid, there were times when I revived, and almost flattered myself that I might yet, in spite of the prognostications of my physician, recover. I was still comparatively young, and I did not precisely like the thought of dying. The simple pain of dying did not affright me; nor had I much reluctance to leave the world, where there was little that had any charm for me. But I could not help sending now and then uneasy glances beyond the tomb. There might be a spirit-world beyond, and death might not after all extinguish the life of the soul. I might, perhaps, live in that unknown world, retain my personal identity, and distinct consciousness and memory. I might, too, at least I could not say it was impossible, be punished there for my sins in this world, and be condemned to have for my companions those very devils whose acquaintance I had so assiduously cultivated here. That might not be pleasant. Indeed, I began to have many painful reflections, and to ask myself if I had not been all my life making a fool of myself. I had been promised great things, but what had I obtained?

“Your experience, my dear friend,” said Mr. Merton, “I doubt not, proves the truth of the old saying, the devil always, sooner or later, leaves his followers in the lurch. You remember, probably, I called the morning after my introduction to you, to give you and Priscilla a warning as to what awaited you. You were then too elated, too full of hope, to listen to any thing I could say; at least, so it seemed to me at the time.”

“Yet you were mistaken. The few words you said interested me much, and I wished at the time to hear more.”

“Alas! it is one of the miseries of the world, that the wicked are much more active for mischief, than the virtuous are for good. Would to God that the followers of Christ had a tithe of the industry and energy of the followers of Satan. If I had been more earnest, more ready to sacrifice my own ease and my own pride, perhaps——. But that is idle. You will, I presume, readily concede now that you were then laboring under a delusion, and indulged hopes which have not been realized?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“So it is. Satan never keeps his promises.”

“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.

“The devil is called the prince of this world, but he is not its absolute lord. He can even here do only what he is, for the purposes of love or justice, permitted to do. It may turn out, then, that he is forbidden to come to the assistance of his servants in the nick of time, even when he himself is disposed to do so. He may raise the storm, but there is One asleep in the bark, who can at any instant awake, and say to the winds and the waves, Peace, be still. It is not fitting that Satan should be able to keep his promises in the great majority of cases to the last, for that would leave too little chance of detecting his delusions, and would confirm his worship. His failures prove his malice, and also that his power is not his own, therefore that he is not God. They serve, too, as punishments to his dupes, for it is fitting that they who, through evil inclination and undue love of the world or of pleasure, trust to him, should ultimately fail in the very goods promised.

“The principles of God’s providence are always and everywhere the same, and there is a close analogy between the natural and the supernatural. God has given to the universe its law. He has placed before man a real, substantial, and desirable good; but he has made this good attainable only in one way, by obedience to his law, which is not an arbitrary law, but a law founded in his own eternal reason, in his own infinite, eternal, and immutable justice. He who attempts to attain his good, his beatitude, by any other means, invariably and inevitably fails. It is as our Lord said,—‘I am the door;’ and ‘he that entereth not by the door, but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber.’ Whoever seeks entrance into the fold of happiness by another than the God-appointed way, whatever that way may be, is predoomed to disappointment. All experience proves it. The departure by the ancient Gentiles from the patriarchal or primitive religion, led to the confusion of their understandings, and to the adoption and practice of the grossest and most abominable superstitions—the extreme of moral or spiritual misery. The man who seeks happiness, even in this life, from acquiring or possessing riches and honor, always fails, even when he apparently succeeds. The most miserable of men are they who make pleasure their sole pursuit. The reason is, that beatitude is not promised to those pursuits, lies not on their plane, and is not attainable by following them. He who attempts to attain it in any of those ways is no wiser than those philosophers of Laputa who sought to extract sunbeams from cucumbers. It is only in accordance with the same principle, that they who seek worldly felicity, by consorting with devils, should in like manner be disappointed.”

“All that is very wise, and would do very well for a sermon,” said Jack. “It may, for aught I know, be very true. I have no knowledge on the subject, and no acquaintance with the devil or his angels. But I wish you would tell me how it happens that the witnesses to these marvellous phenomena are seldom if ever men of real science, well known, and of name in the scientific world?”

“I thought you were one of those who would not admit authority even in matters of faith, and yet you demand authority in matters of science,” replied Mr. Merton, in a tone slightly sarcastic. “You would have the French Academy, for instance, in science what Rome claims to be in religion, and admit a historical fact or a scientific conclusion only on academic authority.”

“But you know,” replied Jack, “that scientific commissions appointed to investigate and report on particular cases in France, never succeed in getting a sight of those marvellous facts which are so readily exhibited to others. Is not this a suspicious circumstance?”

“Not in my mind,” replied Mr. Merton. “Your learned academicians generally commence their investigations with the persuasion that all facts of the kind alleged are impossible, and they seldom pay attention to the actual phenomena passing before them. They are busy only with their scepticism, and do not see what really takes place. Their study is simply how to explain away the phenomena they do see, without admitting their supernatural or superhuman character. Lawyers are said to be the worst witnesses in the world. Academicians are the very worst people in the world to observe facts. I would trust, in what depends on the senses, a plain, honest, unscientific peasant, much quicker than I would an Arago or a Babinet, for he has no theory to disturb him, no conclusion to establish or refute. The science of all your learned academies is infidel in regard to religion. Babinet, of the Institute, has just written an Essay in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, in which he pronounces the phenomena alleged by our recent spiritists impossible, because they contradict the laws of gravitation. Poor man! he reasons as if the phenomena repugnant to the laws of gravitation are supposed to be produced by it, or at least without a power that overcomes it. Why, the very marvellousness of the phenomenon is that it is contrary to the law of gravitation; and because it is contrary to the law of gravitation, we infer that it is preternatural. The learned member of the Institute argues that the fact is impossible, because it would be preternatural, and the preternatural is impossible, because the preternatural would be preternatural! When I see a man raised, without any visible means, to the ceiling, and held there by his feet with his head downwards for half an hour or more without a visible support, I do not pretend that it is in accordance with the law of gravitation, but the essence of the fact is precisely in that it is not. Now, to deny the fact for that reason, is to say that the law of gravitation cannot be overcome or suspended, and precisely to beg the question. When I throw a stone into the air, my force, in some sense, overcomes that of gravitation. How does M. Babinet know that there are not invisible powers who can take a man and hold him up with his feet to the ceiling, or a table, as easily as I can a little child? The fact of the rising of a table or a man to the ceiling is one that is easily verified by the senses, and if attested by witnesses of ordinary capacity and credibility, must be admitted. That it is contrary to the law of gravitation, proves not that it is impossible, but that it is possible only preternaturally. It would be a real relief to find a distinguished academician who had learned practically the elements of logic.

“The devils, again,” continued Mr. Merton, “may not choose to exhibit their superhuman powers before your scientific commissions. It might be against their interest. He is sure of the commissioners as long as he can keep them in their scepticism; but were he to suffer them to escape it, he might lose them. Compelled to acknowledge the existence of Satan, they might go further and acknowledge that of Christ, and become Christians, and labor to harmonize science with faith. Even God himself may choose to let them remain in their scepticism as a just punishment of their intellectual pride, their indocility, and their preferring their own darkness to his light. They take pleasure in sin, and he gives them up to their own delusions, and permits them to believe a lie, that they may be damned, as they deserve, for their sins. The malice, the cunning, the astuteness, the caprice of the devils, the prepossessions of the scientific, and the purposes of God are amply sufficient to account for the fact that these commissions never succeed in witnessing the preternatural or superhuman phenomena said to be witnessed by others.”

“But how am I,” asked Jack, “to believe that a poor old crone, who is half dying of starvation, is in league with the devil? Why does she not make use of her power to procure decent clothing and maintenance?”

“The devil is by no means a trustworthy or a kind and generous friend. He is a philanthropist, and never relieves the suffering under his nose, or cares for that of individuals.”

“I have read,” Jack went on, “a great many witch stories, and descriptions of witch feasts, and I cannot discover what there is in them to attach these hell-cats to their alleged orgies. I came across, yesterday, an account of the witches’ sabbath. I can conceive nothing more absurd, ridiculous, or rather disgusting. The acquaintances of the devil generally represent him as respectable at least for his intellect, and many insist that he is a gentleman. But if all accounts are true, he is very low and vulgar in his tastes, has very little sense of dignity, and is in fact a very shabby fellow. In these orgies he appears, it is said, sometimes in the form of a big negro, more generally under the form of a black ram with immense horns, and in that form is very indecently kissed and worshipped by Mesdames the witches. We know from Tam O’Shanter that on these occasions there is much fiddling and dancing, but I cannot conceive how there can be much pleasure. The whole scene is fitted only to turn one’s stomach.”

“There is no doubt of that,” replied Mr. Merton. “The devil and his worshippers certainly cut a very sorry figure in these nocturnal orgies, as they are represented; but I am not certain that that should be regarded as good ground of scepticism. I never understood that the devil was a _clean_ spirit, and I should naturally expect some degree of filthiness in his worshippers. You must know something of the sins or moral diseases of mankind. Has it not sometimes occurred to you that some apparently very respectable people,—people who go well dressed and wear clean linen,—under the influence of their passions, acting out their natures, cut, to an impartial spectator, about as sorry a figure as Master Leonard and his witches? In the eyes of Infinite Holiness, I am inclined to think there is much that passes in refined and cultivated society that does not appear at all more clean and respectable than do these nocturnal orgies in yours. I do not vouch for the correctness of the popular descriptions of these orgies, but they are in accordance with the well known principles of depraved nature. The indulgence of any of our morbid passions degrades us; and in following our lusts, there is no beastliness which is not for the moment charming to us. How much more, then, when to our natural passions, rendered morbid by indulgence, is added the superhuman influence of unclean spirits! The sensualist lives constantly in a state as disgusting as ever the nocturnal orgies of witches were represented to be. It is the law of all vice to descend, and consequently, the more intimate we are with the devil, only the more rapid and deep is our descent. The moral of the witches’ orgies is true, whether the particular descriptions be or not. He who takes the devil for God, must expect to have hell for his heaven.”

“The academicians are right,” I remarked, “in telling us that the whole of the alleged _diablerie_ is all a delusion or an imposition.”

“Not precisely in their sense, however,” interrupted Mr. Merton. “The whole is unquestionably a delusion, a sheer imposture, but of the devil, not always of man. The devil promises according to the respective inclinations of his servants—to some riches and honors, to some sensual pleasures, to others power, dominion over men, and the secrets of nature. I doubt not that he knows more than men, but he can never be relied on, for he so mingles his lies with the truth, that we cannot separate the one from the other.”

“That is true,” I remarked; “and those secrets he promises we never gain. We grow proud, we assume airs, we feel that we are making marvellous discoveries; we talk large, use big swelling words, and seem to penetrate the secret of the universe; but we have only clutched at the air, and when we open our hand, it is empty. We had made no advance, we had found no vein of knowledge; and when the spell was broken, we found ourselves weaker and more ignorant than ever. The fairy gold was chips and stubble. The palace of wisdom we saw before us, and in which we proposed to live with the Sultan’s fair daughter, disappears, carries her away in it, and leaves us only empty space. I well remember some of my early aspirations. I thought I was illumined by a more than natural light. The clouds rolled back before my searching glance; the darkness disappeared; there was no dread Unknown to confront me; I rose to the empyrean; I was all intelligence; I looked, as a lady of my acquaintance expressed it, ‘into the very abyss of Being.’ Yet it was all illusion—a devilish illusion—and my understanding was all the time darkened, and my eyes closed to the plainest and most obvious truths before me.”

“It was a deception practised upon you—a deception practised alike upon all who would attain to a forbidden knowledge, or to knowledge by ways not permitted by the Supreme Intelligence—upon the Neoplatonists, the Gnostics, the Transcendentalists, and false mystics of every age,” added Mr. Merton. “The light we hail in those forbidden ways or aspirations, is the light which we see when our eyes are shut. It is a preternatural hallucination, and he who follows it is sure not only to go astray, but to fall into the greatest absurdities, and to utter the most ridiculous nonsense.”

“The same principle,” I added, “is true with regard to the promised power over men. These Satanic revolutions, and the terrible doings of our revolutionary Berserkirs, all prove failures in the end. Cromwell supplants Hampden, and Napoleon Lafayette. The devil always leaves us in the lurch.”

“This fact should be borne in mind,” added Mr. Merton, “and if so, might save the world from much superstition. The superstition is not in believing in the reality of demonic invasions, or in believing that the devil sometimes exhibits a superhuman power, tells us, in dreams, visions, necromancy, or other forms of divination, facts of which we were ignorant; but in practising these forms, in confiding in the communications, and in seeking to avail ourselves of the power displayed. No reliance can ever be placed upon them, for supposing the demonic presence real, we have still only a lying spirit on which to depend. The dream of yesternight has come true, that of to-night will prove false. The _medium_ you consulted the other day foretold correctly what was to happen; to-day her familiar spirit is a lying spirit, and her tale is false in all its parts. The predictions of the fortune-teller last year have been fulfilled; his predictions of to-day are a tissue of lies. If Ahab goes up to battle, he shall not die; yet is shot by a bow drawn at a venture. To trust in these things is gross superstition, and tends only to degrade, to render immoral, weak, timid, and miserable. The way of wisdom is to let them alone, turn your back on them, and never suffer your mind or imagination to run on them.”

“It is worthy of remark, that the men who declaim the most against superstition are unbelievers in Christianity, and who, under pretext of making war on superstition, attack religion itself. And yet the Church has always forbidden all superstitious practices, and she commands her children to have no dealings with the devil, to forbear all resort to fortune-tellers or divination, and to pay no attention to dreams, omens, &c. Of course all such things are wrong, are sin, are treason against God; but they are also, and because treason against God, and a dealing with the enemy, unwise and degrading. There is no saying to what depths he may fall who gives way to them, or the misery and wretchedness he may bring upon himself, and even upon those dear to him. I could, were I disposed, draw proofs enough from my own experience, while I was a prey to the superstitions still so rife in our country; but I will not trouble you with them. But of this be sure, that you will never root out that superstition by denying the existence and influence of demons. The remedy is in religious faith, in cultivating a firm trust in God, in obedience to his commands,—and in the firm persuasion that all dealings with devils is unlawful, and that all regard paid to signs, dreams, and omens is superstitious and sinful, and, what will weigh perhaps still more with our age, wholly unprofitable. No good can come from seeking knowledge by forbidden paths, and much evil is sure to come.”

“I am glad,” said Jack, “that Mr. Merton has the grace to admit so much. It would have been a blessed thing for me, if I had been taught to regard mesmerism as unlawful; better still, if it had never been recommended to me as a legitimate science. I do not believe in Satanic invasions; but I do believe little good comes from departing from the old ways, and attempting to be wiser than our fathers were.”