er a wholly spiritual manner, for the propagation
of the second death; we are asked to acknowledge that there is a visible
and tangible manifestation of the descending hierarchy taking place at
the close of a century which has denied that there is any prince of
darkness.

Now there are some subjects which impress one at first sight as
unserious, but we come to regard them differently when we find that they
are being taken seriously. We have been accustomed, with some show of
reason, to connect the idea of devil-worship with barbarous rites
obtaining among savage nations, to regard it, in fact, as a suitable
complement of the fetish. It seems hypothetically quite impossible that
there can be any person, much less any society or class of persons, who,
at this day, and in London, Paris, or New York, adore the evil
principle. Hence, to say that there is Black Magic actively in function
at the present moment; that there is a living cultus of Lucifer; that
Black Masses are celebrated, and involve revolting profanations of the
Catholic Eucharist; that the devil appears personally; that he possesses
his church, his ritual, his sacraments; that men, women, and children
dedicate themselves to his service, or are so devoted by their sponsors;
that there are people, assumed to be sane, who would die in the peace of
Lucifer; that there are those also who regard his region of eternal
fire--a variety unknown to the late Mr Charles Marvin--as the true abode
of beatitude--to say all this will not enhance the credibility or
establish the intelligence of the speaker.

But this improbable development of Satanism is just what is being
earnestly asserted, and the affirmations made are being taken in some
quarters _au grand serieux_. They are not a growth of to-day or
precisely of yesterday; they have been more or less heard for some
years, but their prominence at the moment is due to increasing
insistence, pretension to scrupulous exactitude, abundant detail, and
demonstrative evidence. Reports, furthermore, have quite recently come
to hand from two exceedingly circumstantial and exhaustive witnesses,
and these have created distinctly a fresh departure. Books have
multiplied, periodicals have been founded, the Church is taking action,
even a legal process has been instituted. The centre of this literature
is at Paris, but the report of it has crossed the Channel, and has
passed into the English press. As it is affirmed, therefore, that a
c