s made by the Devil, here is a world split
in twain! A dreadful uncertainty hangs over everything. Nature's
innocence is gone. The clear spring, the pale flower, the little bird,
are these indeed of God, or only treacherous counterfeits, snares laid
out for man? Back! all things look doubtful! The better of the two
creations, being suspiciously like the other, becomes eclipsed and
conquered. The shadow of the Devil covers up the day, spreads over all
life. To judge by appearances and the fears of men, he has ceased to
share the world; he has taken it all to himself.

So matters stand in the days of Sprenger. His book teems with saddest
avowals of God's weakness. "These things," he says, "are done with
God's leave." To permit an illusion so entire, to let people believe
that God is nought and the Devil everything, is more than mere
_permission_; is tantamount to decreeing the damnation of countless
souls whom nothing can save from such an error. No prayers, no
penances, no pilgrimages, are of any avail; nor even, so it is said,
the sacrament of the altar. Strange and mortifying avowal! The very
nuns who have just confessed themselves, declare _while the host is
yet in their mouths_, that even then they feel the infernal lover
troubling them without fear or shame, troubling and refusing to leave
his hold. And being pressed with further questions, they add, through
their tears, that he has a body _because he has a soul_.

* * * * *

The Manichees of old, and the more modern Albigenses, were charged
with believing in the Power of Evil struggling side by side with Good,
with making the Devil equal to God. Here, however, he is more than
equal; for if God through His holy sacrament has still no power for
good, the Devil certainly seems superior.

I am not surprised at the wondrous sight then offered by the world.
Spain with a darksome fury, Germany with the frightened pedantic rage
certified in the _Malleus_, assail the insolent conqueror through the
wretches in whom he chooses to dwell. They burn, they destroy the
dwellings in which he has taken up his abode. Finding him too strong
for men's souls, they try to hunt him out of their bodies. But what is
the good of it all? You burn one old woman and he settles himself in
her neighbour. Nay, more; if Sprenger may be trusted, he fastens
sometimes on the exorcising priest, and triumphs over his very judge.

Among other expedients, the Dominicans