A Deceiving Devil

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 16, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 36.

A Deceiving Devil.

It makes no difference to the devil as to how he deceives if he can only destroy by his deception. If he can make men believe that God has the character he himself does he is pleased, for then men will reject God. If he can delude people into the belief that there is no devil, it suits him just as well, for then they will call evil good. Recently Satan deceived the colored people of Mountville, S. C., to believe that he is dead, and they should bury him. The New York Evening World of August 26 tells us that at that time thousands of negroes had gathered at the above place, mad with religious zeal, amounting to frenzy. The excitement began about the middle of August, on the reception of a new church bell, which was rung steadily for six consecutive hours, and then it was tolled, and rung, and rung and tolled, with but little intermission for two weeks. From North Carolina and Georgia and Alabama and Florida they came by the hundreds, the excitement fed by wild exhorters. The devil is dead, was the great cry. Those thus carried away neither ate nor slept. Many shouted and sung and danced till they fell in cataleptic fits or trances. “Sometimes a strange hush comes over the throng and then, as tho at a signal, all turn and face the east and shout in concert: ‘Lo! see the stars and moons and suns roll back from our path to heaven! Hear the mighty song of welcome go from universe to universe!’” The last news is, that a few of the leaders claimed to have buried the devil in secret, and the people were admonished: “Brethren, you are now free. The devil is buried. Let us all go home and live right, for there is no devil to tempt us any moah.” And the devil laughed. The poor deluded ones will find him as active as ever. He works with mighty power. But Jesus Christ is the Mighty One. Against all such deceptions as the above religious craze, God’s Word has warned us. None need be deceived who will make that Word their guide-book, and Jesus Christ their “Leader and Commander.”