calculate on the continuance of any creature's mortal existence; nor can
we ever know that the being whom we are training for eternity will not
be called into it before such period of life as is here anticipated. In
such a case, how sad to feel that we have needlessly forestalled an evil
day, and even momentarily diverted the young spirit from a sacred path.
The other consideration is this: that as the flesh and the devil will
assuredly do their parts without help from me, and the children of this
world, who are wiser in their generation than the children of light,
will certainly do the same; I may take a lesson of policy from them,
using my best endeavors to preoccupy the field with what is decidedly
good, and humbly hoping that the seed so sown may, through the operation
of the Holy Spirit, take root before the tares are introduced, leaving
little room for them to grow.

Of all the errors into which the world has fallen, none is more fatally
mischievous than the habit of overlooking the personality, the energy,
the power, the watchfulness, the deep cunning of the devil. By a
conventional system, no doubt of his own suggesting, he is never to be
named but in the act of worshipping God, or that of spiritual
instruction. Any other robber and murderer, who was known to be on the
watch to attack our houses, would be the subject of free discourse: his
habits, his haunts, his usual plans, his successful and his baffled
assaults in former cases, would be talked over, and thus a salutary fear
would be kept alive, influencing us to bolt and bar, and watch and ward
with unfailing vigilance, to avert a surprise. But Satan seems to be a
privileged person: we learn, in the nursery, to fancy him a hideous
caricature of human nature, with horns, hoof, and a tail, inspiring
disgust, and a childish fear that wears off as we advance into youth,
leaving an impression rather ludicrous than alarming of the ugly phantom
that, nevertheless, continues identified with him of whom we read in the