THE GREAT MAGICIAN

From the earliest records of history men have lived who seemed to possess strange, occult powers. Magicians—performing miracles, setting aside, apparently, well-known physical laws. Moses met the sorcerers and magicians of Egypt in close competition. There are men to-day, on lecture platforms, performing feats which are miracles; there seems to be no visible explanation.

“The hand is quicker than the eye,” it is said; watches are pounded to pieces before your eyes, the fragments crammed into a gun; the gun is discharged, and the watch will be hanging on a hook, running as if nothing had happened. We once saw a man sewed up in a tarpaulin, placed in a huge trunk, and the trunk strapped securely. In less than five minutes the man came out from an enclosure where the trunk was placed; not one buckle loosened, and not one stitch in the tarpaulin broken. Cannonballs are taken from hats; live ducks, rabbits, and a dozen tin vessels are drawn from one hat in rapid succession. Cards are made to jump out of the deck when called by name. One magician laid his assistant on a table, cut off his head with a large knife, lifted the gory head by the hair and placed it on another table; then carried on a conversation with the severed head in the presence of the astonished audience.

Every one knows these wonderful feats are done by some kind of magic, but for all we can see they are done; the most astute observer cannot detect the secret. The Apostle exhorts the believers to put on the whole armour of God, to be able to stand (not to be swept away or captured) against the wiles of the Devil. Then the Devil is a trickster—a sleight-of-hand performer—a magician. One of his many methods to accomplish his purpose, we find, is delusion: practicing sleights, tricks, and works of magic on the gullibility of his victims.

How many unsophisticated men and boys have been robbed in daylight on a street corner by some little “game,” or trick, by a sharper. Farms have been deeded away for nothing in return. Now, if we were to catalogue all the tricks of all the conjurers of all ages, we have in this evil chieftain a consummation, an embodiment of them all; he is not only a magician, but the chief of them. He incessantly seeks victims more astutely than the crook seeks the ignorant with a purpose of robbery. Observe the text says, “wiles of the devil”; not one, but many; while we are penetrating and avoiding one of his “wiles,” behold, we are in the meshes of another. Human intellect cannot fathom the feats of magic performed in friendly entertainment, where every opportunity is given to examine—then how much more are we at the mercy of sÉances concocted, not to entertain, but to delude and capture.

The astrologers, soothsayers, and magicians; the clairvoyants, ancient and modern, are insignificant compared with this great magician. Is he not superior and supernatural, possessed with unearthly powers? Are there any combinations and hidden laws of which he is unacquainted? Besides, no one is more familiar with the weaknesses and susceptibility of human nature than he. So astute and cunning are his “wiles”—tricks of magic—Paul seems to feel that only the girdings and enduements of God, giving spiritual illumination to the things invisible, can withstand them. The antithesis of the Apostle’s exhortation leaves no doubt in our mind as to his meaning: if we strive and contend in our own wisdom, deception and defeat are inevitable.

To be explicit, does it not look as if multitudes are under a delusion—seeing things through distorted and false lenses—when words and actions, by the best and truest people on earth, are seen as blatant hypocrisy? Does it not look as if a sleight-of-hand expert were manipulating the ideals of this pleasure-mad generation; hiding the true character and dangers which lurk in every indulgence and excess? “Presto, veto—change;” there you are, safe, satisfied, happy. “Spirits of devils,” declares the seer of Patmos, “working miracles, going to the kings, and to the whole world.” The arena wherein he practices his deadly delusions is the whole world. No places exempt; no peoples immune. The whole armour of God is the only sure protection.

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