17. The Church admits the existence of Guardian Angels; but, when these angelic guardians are unable to influence their human wards through the mysterious voice of conscience or of inspiration, why should they not make use of other means of action, more direct and more physically capable of striking the senses, since such means exist? Is it credible that God restricts the employment of these means, which are God’s work, – since everything is of God and nothing can happen without God’s permission, – exclusively to evil spirits, refusing to allow good spirits to employ them also? If such were the case, we should be forced to conclude that God gives greater facilities to the demons for compassing the perdition of humankind, than God gives to their Guardian-Angels for securing their salvation!
And, strange to say! What the Guardian-Angels of humankind, according to the Church, are unable to do, the “demons” do for them; for, with the aid of these communications, denounced by the Church as infernal, they bring back to the worship of God those who denied God, to the practice of virtue those who were plunged in vice; and they thus present to us the amazing spectacle of millions of men and women who have been led to believe in God through the power of the Devil, when the Church had proved itself powerless to effect their conversion! How many, as already remarked, who formerly never prayed, now pray with faith and fervor, thanks to the teachings of these same “demons!” How many, who were formerly proud, selfish, and dissolute, have thus been rendered humble, charitable, and less sensual! And we are to be told that this is the work of demons! If this were so, it would have to be admitted that the Devil had rendered them a much greater service, and had given them much more effectual help than the Angels. But those who can imagine that such an idea could be blindly accepted, at the present day, must have a poor opinion of the judgment of humankind in this century. A religion that makes such a doctrine its cornerstone, which declares its foundations to be undermined if it is deprived of its demons, its Hell, its eternal punishment, and its pitiless God, is a religion that is committing suicide.
