Even fallen humanity would not, at first, acknowledge Satan as its object of worship and federal head; and such a condition of society wherein Satan will be received as supreme (as he will be in the person of the first Beast of Rev. 13), must, therefore, be developed by generations of increasing irreverence and lawlessness toward God.  Thus it has been necessary for Satan to conceal his person and projects from the very people over whom he is in authority and in whom he is the energizing power.  For this reason this class of humanity believes least in his reality, and ignorantly rejects its real leader as a mystical person.  When he is worshipped it is through some idol as a medium, or through his own impersonation of Jehovah; and when he rules it is by what seems to be the voice of a King or the voice of the people.  However, the appalling irreverence of the world to-day is the sure preparation of the forthcoming direct manifestation of Satan, as predicted in Dan. 11, II Thes. 2 and Rev. 13.

Satan’s policy of deception is described as extending to all the nations, and to the whole world:  “Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (II Thes. 2:9, 10).  “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world” (Rev. 12:9).  “And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled:  and after that he must be loosed a little season” (Rev. 20:2, 3).  “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth” (Rev. 20:  7, 8).  He who was the measure of perfection, full of beauty and wisdom; he who made the earth to tremble; who shook kingdoms; has been willing to be ridiculed by the world as a being without reality, that he might, in the end, realize his own deepest desire.

Again, his own subjects have strangely neglected the plain teachings of Scripture on his real power and authority.  To them he has been an imaginary fiend, delighting only in the torment of unfortunate souls; making his home in hell, and himself the impersonation of all that is cruel and vile:  when, on the contrary, he is real, and is the very embodiment of the highest ideals the unregenerate world has received; for he is the inspirer of all those ideals.  With his own he is not at enmity, and he, like the most refined of the world, is in no sympathy with the grosser forms of their sin.  He would hinder those manifestations of evil if he could.  And certainly he does not prompt them; for they are the natural fruit of an