AGAINST PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS

The powers of darkness had been making a dead set upon Donald all
winter, and towards spring he began to lose hope. He came to the
Cottage once a week with news from the seat of war, and I could
distinguish three zones of depression. Within the first he bewailed
his inveterate attachment to this world, and his absolute
indifference to spiritual things, and was content to describe
himself as Achan. The sign that he had entered the second was a
recurring reference to apostacy, and then you had the melancholy
satisfaction of meeting the living representative of Simon Peter.
When he passed into the last zone of the Purgatorio, Donald was
beyond speech, and simply allowed one to gather from allusions to
thirty pieces of silver that he was Judas Iscariot.

So long as it was only Achan or Simon Peter that came to sit with
me, one was not gravely concerned, but Judas Iscariot meant that
Donald had entered the Valley of the Shadow.

He made a spirited rally at the Winter Sacrament, and distinguished
himself greatly on the evening of the Fast day. Being asked to pray,
as a recognition of comparative cheerfulness, Donald continued for
five and twenty minutes, and unfolded the works of the Devil in such
minute and vivid detail that Burnbrae talks about it to this day,
and Lachlan Campbell, although an expert in this department,
confessed astonishment. It was a mighty wrestle, and it was perhaps
natural that Donald should groan heavily at regular intervals, and
acquaint the meeting how the conflict went, but the younger people
were much shaken, and the edification even of the serious was not