On it and of its family was to be contrived the scene, wherein, to the admiration of the universe, God himself in Person was going visibly to make head against corruption in creation, and for ever thus to quench that possibility again:  wherein He was marvellously to invent and demonstrate how Mercy and Truth should meet together, how Righteousness and Peace should kiss each other.  There, was going to be set forth the wonderfully complicated battle-plan, by which, force countervailing force, and design converging all things upon one fixed point, Good, concrete in the creature, should overwhelm not without strife and wounds Evil concrete in the creature, and all things, “even the wicked,” should be seen harmoniously blending in the glory of the attributes of God.  The mythologic Pan, [Greek:  to pan] the great Universal All, was deeply interested in the struggle:  for the seed of the woman was to bruise the serpent’s head; not merely as respected the small orb about to be, but concerning heaven itself, the unbounded “haysh hamaim,” wherefrom dread Lucifer was thus to be ejected.  On the earth, a mere planet of humble lustre, which the prouder suns around might well despise, was to be exhibited this noble and analogous result; the triumph of a lower intelligence, such as man, over a higher intelligence, such as angel:  because, the former race, however frail, however weak, were to find their nature taken into God, and should have for their grand exemplar, leader and brother, the Very Lord of all arrayed in human guise; while the latter, the angelic fallen mass, in spite of all their pristine wisdom and excellency, were to set up as their captain him, who may well and philosophically be termed their Adversary.

This dark being, probably the mightiest of all mere creatures as the embodiment of corrupted good and perversion of an archangelic wisdom, was about to be suffered to fall victim to his own overtopping ambitions, and to drag with him a third part of the heavenly host—­some tributary monarchs of the stars:  thus he, and those his colleagues, should become a spectacle and a warning to all creatures else; to stand for spirits’ reading in letters of fire a deeply burnt-in record how vast a gulf there is between the Maker and the made; how impassable a barrier between the derived intelligence and its infinite Creator.  Such an unholy leader in rebellion against good—­let us call him A or B, or why not for very euphony’s sake Lucifer and Satanas?—­such a corrupted excellence of heaven was to meet his final and inevitable disgrace to all eternity on the forthcoming battle-field of earth.  Would it not be probable then that our world, soon to be fashioned and stocked with its teeming reasonable millions, should concentrate to itself the gaze of the universe, and, from the deeds to be done in it, should arrogate towards man a deep and fixed attention:  that “the morning stars should sing together, and all the sons of God should shout for joy.”  Let us too, according to the power given to us, partake of such attention antecedently in some detail:  albeit, as always, very little can be tracked of the length and breadth of our theme.