Beel.  If the case be so with Mansoul, as Mr. Profane has described it to be, it will be no great matter what day we assault it; not their prayers, nor their power will do them much service.

When Beelzebub had ended his oration, then Apollyon did begin.  ’My opinion,’ said he, ’concerning this matter, is, that we go on fair and softly, not doing things in a hurry.  Let our friends in Mansoul go on still to pollute and defile it, by seeking to draw it yet more into sin (for there is nothing like sin to devour Mansoul).  If this be done, and it takes effect, Mansoul, of itself, will leave off to watch, to petition, or anything else that should tend to her security and safety; for she will forget her Emmanuel, she will not desire his company, and can she be gotten thus to live, her Prince will not come to her in haste.  Our trusty friend, Mr. Carnal-Security, with one of his tricks did drive him out of the town; and why may not my Lord Covetousness, and my Lord Lasciviousness, by what they may do, keep him out of the town?  And this I will tell you, (not because you know it not,) that two or three Diabolonians, if entertained and countenanced by the town of Mansoul, will do more to the keeping of Emmanuel from them, and towards making the town of Mansoul your own, than can an army of a legion that should be sent out from us to withstand him.  Let, therefore, this first project that our friends in Mansoul have set on foot, be strongly and diligently carried on, with all cunning and craft imaginable; and let them send continually, under one guise or another, more and other of their men to play with the people of Mansoul; and then, perhaps, we shall not need to be at the charge of making a war upon them; or if that must of necessity be done, yet the more sinful they are, the more unable, to be sure, they will be to resist us, and then the more easily we shall overcome them.  And besides, suppose (and that is the worst that can be supposed) that Emmanuel should come to them again, why may not the same means, or the like, drive him from them once more?  Yea, why may he not, by their lapse into that sin again, be driven from them for ever, for the sake of which he was at the first driven from them for a season?  And if this should happen, then away go with him his rams, his slings, his captains, his soldiers, and he leaveth Mansoul naked and bare.  Yea, will not this town, when she sees herself utterly forsaken of her Prince, of her own accord open her gates again unto you, and make of you as in the days of old?  But this must be done by time, a few days will not effect so great a work as this.’

So soon as Apollyon had made an end of speaking, Diabolus began to blow out his own malice, and to plead his own cause; and he said, ’My lords, and powers of the cave, my true and trusty friends, I have with much impatience, as becomes me, given ear to your long and tedious orations.  But my furious gorge, and empty paunch, so lusteth after a repossession of my famous town of Mansoul, that whatever comes out, I can wait no longer to see the events of lingering projects.  I must, and that without further delay, seek, by all means I can, to fill my insatiable gulf with the soul and body of the town of Mansoul.  Therefore lend me your heads, your hearts, and your help, now I am going to recover my town of Mansoul.’