Note 218 — Chapter I · (continued 2)

This estimate of the case appealed to Osgood’s mind and satisfied his fancy. A year later he was heard on the following subject: The Devil Let Loose; or The Wo occasioned to the Inhabitants of the Earth by His Wrathful Appearance among Them. For lurid rhetoric Osgood outdid himself on this occasion. “Not in France only, but in various other countries, is the devil let loose; iniquity abounds; unclean spirits, like frogs in the houses and kneading-troughs of the Egyptians, have gone forth to the kings and rulers of the earth, … the armies of Gog and Magog are gathered together in open hostility against all unrighteousness, truth and goodness.” (The Devil Let Loose, etc. Illustrated in a Discourse, delivered on the Day of the National Fast, April 25, 1799, Boston, 1799, pp. 13 et seq.)