“Note” American Sentinel 12, 21, p. 331.

IN a Sunday-school quarterly of recent date Dr. Earl Barnes strikes at a popular religious fallacy by mentioning that “many children have formed their ideas of Satan from the picture on the cans of deviled ham.” This is unfortunate enough, certainly; but it might have been still worse if their conceptions on this point had been derived from some pictorial representations of an approved orthodox type. The only authority on the subject is Scripture, and that speaks of Satan as appearing in the form of “an angel of light.” 2 Corinthians 11:14. The people generally have been so fooled by what theology and tradition have taught them on this point that they have been prepared to see the devil only in that which to most minds is shocking and repulsive, and not in that also which is beautiful, “respectable,” and even “pious;” and as a consequence they have been easily duped by the arch-deceiver. The devil knows enough not to appear with cloven hoofs, horns and tail when he wants to catch people whom anything outwardly repulsive would repel.

Share this: