SATAN'S EMISSARY by A Victim

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 28, 1884

SATAN'S EMISSARY.

By A Victim

BY A VICTIM.

BEHIND a latticed portal screened, There skulks the image of a man, Whose calling but befits a fiend— Polluting every soul he can.

He garnishes his weird retreat With pictured walls and sanded floor, Enchants the air with music sweet, While flowers perfume his treacherous door.

Fresh evergreens adorn his gate, The youth's unwary eye to win, And thus allure him to a fate Which dooms his life to woe and sin.

He marks that noble, gifted boy, Designed to fill an honored place, And lays his devilish decoy, To capture, ruin, and disgrace.

Astride a keg, he paints a king, Who holds aloft the tempting bowl, But ne'er portrays the viper sting Which smites the unsuspecting soul.

How long shall he, thus tempting draw Th' unwary to his fatal den, And be protected by the law In brutalizing youth and men?

Will justice hold us guiltless, while We thus connive at laws that sell Indulgences to monsters vile To vend the "beverage of hell,"—

And so disgrace the Christian name, And tempt to wrath the Lord of life, By tamely cringing 'neath the shame That legalizes crime and strife?

Alas, alas! our faltering hope, Alternate, yields and clings again, When we survey the frightful scope, Through which the rum-fiend holds his reign. —The Lever.