EVIL SPIRITS. 365 



ant Reformation, a seething mass of conflicting theological parties 

 and opinions : the old Church, acknowledged even by its defenders 

 to be corrupt, making what seemed to many its death-stand 

 against Protestantism ; and Protestantism divided into number- 

 less hostile camps, each only with difficulty united against the 

 common foe. 



In these matters of history our minds ought to be espe- 

 cially free from prejudice. For example, the Reformation in the 

 end undoubtedly accomplished a vast amount of good. It fos- 

 tered among the Protestant churches a spirit of liberty and of 

 free inquiry. It rejected multitudes of superstitions and of worn- 

 out theologic dogmas, it simplified the ritual, it encouraged the 

 reading of the Scriptures, it curtailed the power of the clergy. 

 The good effects of the Reformation were felt also after a time by 

 the Roman Church itself — in greater definiteness of statement, in 

 purified morals, in increased zeal. The Protestant Reformation, 

 in fact, produced the reaction in favor of Roman Catholicism, and 

 ushered in that brilliant era of Roman Catholic missionary effort 

 which still, like an aureole of glory, crowns that ancient Church. 

 But, although this is undoubtedly true, yet it can not be denied 

 that the immediate effects of the Reformation were not entirely 

 beneficial. It unsettled men's minds, it increased the doubt and 

 uncertainty that weighed down upon men, and it in no wise 

 lightened the gloom in which they groped their way. Moreover, 

 "it was for a time only an exchange of masters. . . . The Protest- 

 ant believed in his own infallibility quite as firmly as his oppo- 

 nent believed in the infallibility of the Pope. ' Faith ' still meant 

 an unreserved acceptance of the opinions of others. As long as 

 such a conception existed a period of religious convulsion was 

 necessarily a period of extreme suffering and terror." 



As far, then, as the belief in evil spirits and other agents of 

 Satan is concerned, the Protestant churches stood upon the same 

 ground as that upon which stood the Roman Church. By both 

 sections of the Christian world Satan and his angels were believed 

 to be almost omnipresent. For example, Luther, courageous, full 

 of common sense as he was, tells us that in the cloisters at Wit- 

 tenberg he used to hear the devil talking to him ; in fact, he was 

 so accustomed to this that he naively relates that once, upon be- 

 ing awakened by the noise, he looked, and seeing that it was only 

 the devil, he went to sleep again. The black stain on the wall of 

 the cell at Wartburg still remains : Luther had thrown an ink- 

 bottle at Satan. He ascribed all his ailments except earache — I 

 do not know why he made an exception of that — to the agency of 

 evil spirits. He tells us that the devil frequently caught travelers 

 and strangled them, and transported persons through the air. He 

 had known Satan to appear in court as an innocent barrister; 



