WHO CARRIES ON THE BUSINESS?

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8264, 24 May 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHO CARRIES ON THE BUSINESS?

[BV THE EKV. A. J. HOUGH.] Men don't believe in a devil now as their fathers used to do, They've forced the door of the broadest creed to let His Majesty through ; There isn't a print of his cloven foot or a fiery dart from his bow To be found in earth or air today, for the world has voted so. But who is it inixus the fatal draught that palsies heart and brain, And loads the bier of each passing year with ten hundred thousand slain? Who blights the bloom of the land to-day with the fiery bro ith of hell ? If the devil isn't and never was, won't somebody rise and tell ? Who dogs the stops of the toiling saint, and digs the pit for his feet? Who sows the tares in the field of Time wherevor God sows His wheat ? The devil is voted not to be, and of course the thing is true, But who is doing the kind of work the devil alone should do ? We are told he does not go about as a roaring lion now, But whom shall we hold responsible for the everlasting row To be heard in home, in church, and in State, to earth's remotest bound, If the devil by a unanimous vote is nowhere to be found'! Won't somebody step to the front forthwith, and make their bow, and show How the frauds and the crimes of a single day spring up ?—we want to know! The devil was fairly voted out, and of course the devil's gone ; Bat simple people would like to know who carries his business on I