Evil One

“ Perhaps this stirring desire to keep within, this fierce ambition which struggled in his breast for mastery, was but a new temptation of the Evil One to lure him into Vanity and a Love of Power for its own sake. Oh, if only on the one side lay the path of perfect right-doing, and on the other the path of evil-doing, how easy were the decision. But, alas! the devil works not in that way. He so mixes up the good with the evil, and the evil with the good, that one knows not which way to turn. ”

“ The Evil One is very subtle, and not only in our moments of pride and prosperity, but also in our hours of sorrow and affliction, he is for ever waiting and watching to betray us to our downfall and damnation. ”

“ Your not fleeing from such a villain, as from the Evil One himself,--your harbouring the intention of going forth into the world with one abhorred alike of God and man, not feeling sufficient detestation of the crime to induce you to avoid the criminal who must be shunned by every honest man. Oh, Ernestine, I cannot believe it now! ”

“ Before that evening was over, Eric Williams was "a god, knowing good from evil."
O young boys, if your eyes ever read these pages, pause and beware. The knowledge of evil is ruin, and the continuance in it hell. That little matter--that beginning of evil,--it will be like the snowflake detached by the breath of air from the mountain-top, which, as it rushes down, gains size, and strength, and impetus, till it has swollen to the mighty and irresistible avalanche that overwhelms garden, and field, and village, in a chaos of undistinguishable death. ”

“ Never, in such places, on any account, begin to sharpen your razors near midnight, for the Evil One seems ever to be lurking in the gloomy corners of such cheerless houses, and there is no knowing what thoughts he might put into your head. ”

“ But after all, that is the way of human nature, although it may not be the way of those who try to draw it and who love to paint the villain black as the Evil One and the virtuous heroine so radiant that we begin to fancy we can hear the whispering of her wings. ”

“ If this were true the basest villain could escape all the consequences of his evil in a moment, and you who are so innocent, so exquisite in your spiritual organization, so brave and noble that you can face this awful fear in your devotion to those you love—you by ceasing to breathe merely would sink to precisely the same level and be no different from the lifeless clay of the villain. ”

“ The persistent life of such local traditions as these fully attests to the belief of former generations of men in the active agency of the Evil One in human affairs. And not only this, but this omnipresent devil has actually left his mark, legibly stamped, in so many places, and his name in so many others, that to doubt his actual presence were not only unreasonable but ungenerous. ”

“ Yes, a furious temper is a very evil thing; I’d give my other leg to be rid of mine!” and in the warmth of his self-reproach the sailor struck his wooden one against the hearth with such violence as to make Alie start in terror that some fierce explosion was about to follow.
“Well, I’ve made up my mind as to its being an evil—a great evil,” continued Jonas, in his quiet meditation; “the next question is, how is the evil to be got rid of? There’s the pinch! It clings to one like one’s skin. It’s one’s nature—how can one fight against nature? ”

“ His neighbors regarded him first with envy, then with aversion, at last with fear. Not a few affirmed he had entered into a league with the Evil One. Others shook their heads, saying, “What does it signify? that man would outwit the devil himself.”
But one morning, when the fiend came as usual to fill the boots, what was his astonishment to find that he could not fill them. He poured in the guineas, but it was like pouring water into a rat-hole. ”

“ Gird yourselves against his wicked devices, and, led by the light of the name of the All-Seeing God, make your escape from the darkness that surroundeth you. Let your vision be world-embracing, rather than confined to your own self. The Evil One is he that hindereth the rise and obstructeth the spiritual progress of the children of men. ”

“ On the other hand, imagine the "enemy" as the resentful man conceives him—and it is here exactly that we see his work, his creativeness; he has conceived "the evil enemy," the "evil one," and indeed that is the root idea from which he now evolves as a contrasting and corresponding figure a "good one," himself—his very self! ”

“ Evil men have tried to kill our son—cruel, pitiless men who lurked in dark places and cast stones at him. Yea, they lurked in dark places, and cast stones at him, the cowardly villains! Yet suffer them not to have achieved their evil purpose, seeing that they are men who do offend Thee with their misdeeds, and pollute Thy earth with their abominations. ”

“ Why should they be worried or even fear some infection from me, as if troubles could be transmitted? Is there any evil involved, or is it a matter merely of ill report, rather than an evil?" Put the question voluntarily to yourself: "Am I tormented without sufficient reason, am I morose, and do I convert what is not an evil into what is an evil?" ”

“ Evil, for which I live, consists not in action but in character. The bad man is dear to me; not the bad act, whose fruits, if we could follow them far enough down the hurtling cataract of the ages, might yet be found more blessed than those of the rarest virtues. And it is not because you have killed a dealer, but because you are Markheim, that I offer to forward your escape. ”

“ We do not believe the Enemy has abandoned his old profession: an evil spirit despises a disembodied state; if people are fortified and shielded against his entrance—then the swine. As cold air whistles and roars about every crack and cranny, entering in from all directions, so evil spirits—Devil and demons—press their entrance into the soul. ”

“ Bloodshed is the trade, and horror is the element of this man. The process by which the sympathies of nature are extinguished in our hearts, by which evil is made our good, and by which we are made susceptible of no activity but in the infliction, and no joy but in the spectacle of woes, is an obvious process. As to an alliance with evil geniuses, the power and the malice of daemons have been a thousand times exemplified in human beings. There are no devils but those which are begotten upon selfishness, and reared by cunning. ”

“ And as self-love is the source of all other evil loves when it reigns supreme, therefore the devils are thoroughly immersed in evil. They are full of hatred, malice, craft and subtlety;—full of falsehood, tyranny, cunning and cruelty. Their life is one of unmitigated selfishness. It is their delight to do all manner of mischief;—to foment hatreds, strifes and divisions;—to stir up envies, jealousies and revenges—to intensify all the worst passions of the human heart;—to blind, and mislead, and if possible make slaves of, all who come within the sphere of their influence. ”

“ If evil is supreme here, shall it not be so in that undiscovered country,—that life to come? The dreams that may come give him pause, and he either shuffles on, doubting, hesitating, and incapable of decision, or he hurls himself wildly against his fate. ”

“ Evil unreturned to its doers must darken the sunshine of the famous days. Corinth uttered a cry of lamentation and wrath. 'Where are the ill-doers, the spillers of blood, that we may spill their blood and avenge Ibycus, showing the gods that we are their helpers?' But those robbers and murderers might not be found. ”

“ Out of evil, evil will come. We do not gather figs of thistles. Your life has been evil; your heart is bad. Can good emanate from this? You will go forth to the world in fair seeming, no trace of your sin visible to the eye, and you will spread the contagion of your sin. Listen to me, Myron Holder. ”

“ All of evil which this man had accomplished to his knowledge flooded his brain and inflamed it while he held him pinned powerless to the ground, and stared pitilessly into the protruding, agonised eyes from which terror even could not drive the malevolent hatred they expressed. ”

“ Instead of attempting to view the existence of evil in the light of any principle whatever, he merely accumulates evil upon evil; and when the mass has become sufficiently terrific, with the jeering mockery of a small fiend, he delights in the contemplation of the awful spectacle as a conclusive demonstration that the Ruler of the world is unequal to the government of his creatures. His book is merely an appeal to the ignorance and feelings of the reader, and can do no mischief, except when it may happen to find a weak head in union with a corrupt heart. ”

“ And a man, who sells any article, the direct tendency of which is to lead men into evil habits, and thus injure their souls, is guilty of breaking this Commandment. And in general, bad men—men, who give themselves up, without restraint, to the indulgence of their evil inclinations—are in heart spiritual murderers; for they are consociated, as to their spirits, with hell—with that Evil One, who "was a murderer from the beginning." ”

“ Last of all there rises the cry for deliverance from the power of evil. Once more we realize that this is not an occasion for magical interference, no call for a fiery dart out of the sky to pierce a black demon who is pushing us into sin. The drama is an inward one and the enemy, called of many names, is a part of our own self. Each soul has its own struggle with the immemorial tug of brute inheritance—the sag of lower nature. ”

“ That man was the chief cause of my subsequent career in crime and misery—my evil genius. Oh, sir, warn all the young men you may meet to shun the company of the wicked and immoral as they would a pestilence! They are the instruments with which the devil works out his deeds of darkness. I did not know how bad he was, or, perhaps, I might have avoided him and been saved. For two years or more, I was constantly in some smuggling craft or another; and though we frequently lost a cargo, we managed to escape being taken and sent on board a man-of-war to serve the king. ”

“ Both Justin and the writer who passes under the name of Clement add the clause 'Whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil' (or 'of the Evil One') . But this, while it tallies perfectly with the canonical reading, evidently excludes any other. It is consequent and good sense to say, 'Do not go beyond a plain yes or no, because whatever is in excess of this must have an evil motive,' but the connection is entirely lost when we substitute 'Keep your word, for whatever is more than this has an evil motive'—more than what? ”

“ The spirit of an evil man enters of itself into these arts when he is released from his body, for they are inherent in the nature of the evil in which he then is. By these arts they torment each other in the hells. ”

“ But I realized that the evil, or the good—for why call love an evil?— had penetrated into the most remote regions of my being, and I realized the energy of my struggle like a person entombed who tries to extricate himself. ”

“ And if we’re the evil ourselves, if we’re the spark of devil-fire, out we must go! What misery I could have saved for Hal, if I’d understood before—and what a cheap price! An old, used-up life for a new, strong, fresh one. ”

“ How can I speak my gratitude to heaven and thy teaching, which brought me so swiftly, so wonderfully, to prevail with that dread man! I think evil is like the false opal, which needs but the first touch of pure light to shatter it. ”

“ And evil is this in which we see these demons in the shapes of men sitting in our very midst, before the very throne of our queen. Already has God shown His anger, shown it in this darkness which has sent fear to the stoutest heart—this darkness the like of which no living man has ever known in Drome. ”

“ Say to yourself, "For what I suffer I condemn another man, or I accuse the Arch-Invisible, be it a Destiny, be it a Maker!" and the logical sequel is to add evil to evil, folly to folly—to retort on the man who so wrongs, or on the Arch-Invisible who so afflicts you. ”

“ Thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee - They shall ever stare thee in the face, upbraid thee with thy ingratitude and disobedience, and be witnesses against thee.
Verse 5
An evil, an only evil - The great, the sovereign, the last exterminating evil, is come: the sword, the pestilence, the famine, and the captivity. Many MSS. read אחר achar, after. So evil cometh after evil; one instantly succeeds another. ”

“ Notice the profound truth here in regard to the essential and deepest evil of all our evil. 'Your thoughts'; 'your ways,'—self-dependence and self-confidence are the master-evils of humanity. And every sin is at bottom the result of saying—'I will not conform myself to God, but I am going to please myself, and take my own way.' My own way is never God's way; my own way is always the devil's way. ”

“ Their delight is in the love of evil. This is their life. The miseries of hell they would gladly escape; but from those vile lusts, they have no wish to be delivered, and with these, the miseries that they suffer, are necessarily and inseparably connected. ”

“ I am told that I must render good for evil. I am told that if smitten on one cheek I must turn the other. I am told that I must overcome evil with good. I am told that I must love my enemies; and will it do for this God who tells me to love my enemies to damn his? ”

“ They thought them the most wretched beings in creation; and they might, therefore, artfully pervert their creed and exaggerate their vices. Most frequently, such would be the genuine result of their abhorrence: just as popular superstition pictures the "foul fiend" with horns, and cloven feet, and a hideously distorted countenance—not because it is really accredited, but because nothing is thonght too vile or too fearful for the Evil One. ”