preach to them, and to disclose the mysteries of your kingdom, thus aiding their salvation instead of hindering it.”  At the word “salvation” I saw some leaping up, a living fire of rage.  “Every tale is fair till the other side be told,” quoth the devil, “I hope Lucifer will not allow one of the earth-born race of Adam to contend with me, who am an angel of far superior kind and stock.”  “His punishment is certain,” said Lucifer, “but do thou, sirrah, give clear and ready answer to these charges; or by hopeless Hell I will—.”  “I have led hither,” said he, “many a soul since Satan was in the Garden of Eden, and I ought to understand my business, better than this upstart accuser.”  “Blood of infernal firebrands,” cried Lucifer, “did I not bid thee answer clearly and readily?” “By your leave,” said the demon, “I have preached a hundred times, and have denounced many of the various ways that lead to your confines, and yet at the same breath, have quietly brought them hither safe and sound by some other delusive path, just as I did while preaching recently in the German States, in one of the Faro Isles, and in several other places.  In this manner, through my preaching have many Papist beliefs, and old traditions come first into the world, and all in the guise of goodness.  For who ever would swallow a baitless hook?  Who ever gained credence for a tale which had not some truth mingled with the false, or some little good overshadowing the bad?  So, if whilst preaching I can instil one counsel of mine own among a hundred that are good and true, by means of that one, through heedlessness or superstition, will more weal betide your kingdom than woe through all the others ever.”  “Well,” said Lucifer, “since thou canst do so much good in the pulpit, I bid thee dwell seven years in the mouth of a barndoor preacher who always utter what first comes to his mind; there thou wilt have an opportunity of putting in a word now and then to thine own purpose.”

There were many more devils and damned darting to and fro like lightning about the awful throne, to count and to receive offices.  But suddenly without any warning there came a command for all the messengers and prisoners to depart from the court, each one to his den, leaving the King and his chief counsellors alone together.  “Is it not better for us also to depart, lest they find us?” I asked my friend.  “Thou needest have no fear,” answered the angel, “no unclean spirit can ever pierce this veil.”  Wherefore we remained there invisible, to see the issue.

Then Lucifer began graciously to address his peers thus:- “Ye mightiest spirits of evil, ye archfiends of hellish guile, the utmost of your malicious wiles am I now constrained to demand.  All here know that Britain and its adjacent isles is the realm most dangerous to my state, and fullest of mine enemies; and what is a hundredfold worse, there reigns now a queen most dangerous of all, who has never once inclined hither, nor along the old way of Rome on the one hand