Those Who Live By The Hammer Shall Die Ey The Hammer

( Originally Published 1908 )

The Gentle Art of Knocking

SATAN was once a man. Later he evolved into a God and dwelt in Paradise. There must have been a time when he was worthy of trust and affection, otherwise the Almighty would never have allowed him to enter Heaven.

But Satan was of a peculiar disposition. He had the "artistic temperament," which is to say, he was moody, irritable, fault-finding, and a good deal of the time idle. Instead of trying to remedy the weak points of Paradise, he merely pointed them out and harangued about them to all who would listen.

And Satan still finds mischief for idle hands to do. It was the same then—Satan would neither tune harps, launder the robes, nor polish the pavement which was made of gold and precious stones.

It took a lot of labor and a deal of skill to set these paving stones, but while the workers were at it, Satan would sit on the curb and make sport of them. When the Almighty came around to see how things were getting along, Satan would whisper unkind things about Him after He had passed, and kick about how severe He was in discipline.

The Almighty warned Satan from time to time to get busy, but his answer was, "I am!"

"Sure enough," replied the Almighty, " but at the wrong thing. "

They tried to get Satan to lead the Choral Society and break in the new arrivals, some of whom sang slightly off-key.

"I teach those jays ? Why they have no voice —they only have a disease. You should never have let them in—what this place needs is a new gatekeeper who has nerve with him, and can direct the wrong applicant where to go!

No, I 'll not lead your orchestra; and anyway, I am drilling a little class of my own and have no time: I am organizing an Anvil Chorus."

It was no use—Satan would not do what he was told. He always knew a better way, and he sneered at every plan for a heavenly betterment that he did not himself suggest. And he suggested precious few, and these he could not carry out. There was only one thing that interested him and that was the Anvil Chorus.

When the saints sang Hallelujahs, Satan would start up his favorite instrument and pound. He wasn't industrious in anything but knocking.

Finally he had gotten so many people believing that the anvil was really sweeter than the harp, that the Almighty lost patience.

And when it was discovered that Satan had started a factory to make hammer-handles, the Almighty decided to fire him bodily.

So the word was passed along, and the saints quietly tucked their robes in their belts and made a rush for Mister Satan and his band of Knockers.

It was soon over. Satan was shot out of Heaven like a rubber ball from a wooden cannon.

Milton says he fell for two weeks.

When he finally reached earth he called himself the D'Evil, and boasted of being a prince —a dispossessed prince.

He would never have been so proud if the theologians had not paid him so much attention.

The preachers, while publicly warning their flocks to shun him, were secretly hobnobbing with him a good deal of the time. Then the playwrights and poets admired him and secretly affected him, and wove him into literature, and all this tended to turn his head.

But now the preachers, for the most part, have denied him, and literature has cut his acquaintance. He is no longer popular. Where he is and what he does is nothing to us.

The Devil is a dead one.