Is the Devil a Myth?

That we may appreciate this discussion, removed as far as possible from theological terminology and theories, and get a concrete view-point, the following head-lines from a single issue of a metropolitan daily will suffice: “War Clouds Hanging Low;” "Men Higher Up Involved;” “Eighty-seven Divorces On Docket;” “Blood Flows In the Streets;” “Gaunt Hunger Among Strikers;” “Arrested For Forgery;” “A White Slave Victim;” “Attempted Train Robbery;” “Kills Wife and Ends Own Life;” “Two Men Bite Dust;” “Investigate Bribery.”
This fearful list may be duplicated almost every day in the year. Our land is deluged with crime, without respect to person or place; its blight touches all circles from the slum to the four hundred. Wealth and poverty, culture and ignorance, fame and obscurity, suffer alike from this Pandora Box scourge. The march of history—the pilgrimage of the race, has enjoyed but little respite from tears and blood. Those who strive to maintain a standard of purity, righteousness, and honour, are beset by strange, powerful, intangible influences, from the cradle to the grave. The child in swaddling clothes has a predisposition to willfullness, deception, and disobedience; paroxysms of passion and anger are manifested with the slightest provocation.