Men don’t believe in a devil now as their fathers used to do
They force 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 mixing the fatal draught that palsies heart and brain?
And loads the earth of each passing year with ten hundred thousand slain?
Who blights the bloom of the land today with the fiery breath of hell,
If the devil isn’t and never was – won’t somebody rise and tell?

Who dogs the steps of the toiling saint and digs the pit for his feet?
Who sows the tares in the field of time, wherever 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, in state, to the 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 his bow and show
How the frauds and the crimes of the day spring up, for surely we want to know.
The devil was fairly voted out, and of course, the devil is gone.
But simple people would like to know, who carries his business on?

Herbert Trench, Irish-born playwright
(1865-1923)