Parsons' "Satans Devices" is an interesting text- one which manages to combine (effectively) Protestant demonological opinion with social reformism, containing a large number of specific anecdotes regarding both the author and contemporaries interacting with heretics, demoniacs, and disbelievers.
Satan is here regarded primarily as a tempter to vanity, vice, and disbelief- a rather Protestant opinion (especially in the mid 19th century.) All the problems of sloth, greed, and lust, are explored. The socially reformist ideology which forms a backdrop to this religious ideology during the early industrial period is of historical import.
The work has been illustrated as well by the very good Rave Feather Illustrations.
225 pages.
