Michael responded that Satan
was not to be destroyed, but his works in Adam and his seed, and that the
sacrifice of the Son's life for man would forever crush the strength of
Satan's progeny, Sin and Death. Then, to that Heaven to which he would
reascend, the faithful would go when the time came for the world's
dissolution, and there would be received into the bliss eternal.
Strengthened and sustained, Adam went down from the mount and met Eve,
just awaking from comforting dreams.
The Cherubim descended, and, urged by the Angel, the two took their way
into the wide world that lay before them, and looking back beheld the
flaming swords of the Cherubim at the gates of their lost Paradise.
SELECTIONS FROM PARADISE LOST.
SATAN.
After having been thrown out of Heaven with his crew, Satan lay nine days
in the burning lake into which he fell. Then, rousing himself, he rose
from the liquid flames, flew over the lake, and alighting upon the solid
though burning land, thus addressed Beelzebub, who had accompanied him.
"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,"
Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat
That we must change for Heaven?--this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since He
Who now is sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from Him is best,
Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
Above his equals.
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