Page:Anthony John (IA anthonyjohn00jero).pdf/255

 they reckoned a hundred thousand perished in one valley. They were eating the corpses of the children. And on my way to St. Petersburg I passed stations where the corn was rotting by the roadside. The price had fallen and it wasn't worth transporting. The devil must get some fun looking down upon the world."

He had been standing by the window with his hands in his pockets. It was still twilight. He swung round suddenly.

"I believe in the Devil," he said. "I don't mean the devil that we sing about—the discontented angel that God has let out at the end of a chain, that is finally to be destroyed when he has served God's purpose. But the eternal spirit of evil that is a part of all things—that brooded over chaos before God came. He also must be our father. Hate, cruelty, lust, greed: how else were we born with them? Would they have come to us from God. Evil also claims us for his children—is fighting for possession of us, is calling to us to labour with him, to turn the world into hell. Hate one another. Do ill to one another. That is his commandment. Which does the world obey: God or the Devil? Does hate or love rule the world? Whom does the world honour? The greedy man, the selfish man, the man who 'gets on'