ave erected a barrier against which all the
efforts of reactionists beat in vain.(378)

(378) See Kirchhoff, pp. 181-187; also Langin, Religion und
Hexenprozess, as above cited.

In America, the belief in diabolic influence had, in the early colonial
period, full control. The Mathers, so superior to their time in many
things, were children of their time in this: they supported the belief
fully, and the Salem witchcraft horrors were among its results; but the
discussion of that folly by Calef struck it a severe blow, and a better
influence spread rapidly throughout the colonies.

By the middle of the eighteenth century belief in diabolic possession
had practically disappeared from all enlightened countries, and during
the nineteenth century it has lost its hold even in regions where the
medieval spirit continues strongest. Throughout the Middle Ages, as we
have seen, Satan was a leading personage in the miracle-plays, but
in 1810 the Bavarian Government refused to allow the Passion Play at
Ober-Ammergau if Satan was permitted to take any part in it; in spite of
heroic efforts to maintain the old belief, even the childlike faith of
the Tyrolese had arrived at a point which made a representation of Satan
simply a thing to provoke laughter.

Very significant also was the trial which took place at Wemding, in
southern Germany, in 1892. A boy had become hysterical, and the Capuchin
Father Aurelian tried to exorcise him, and charged a peasant's wife,
Frau Herz, with bewitching him, on evidence that would have cost the
woman her life at any time during the seventeenth century. Thereupon the
woman's husband brought suit against Father Aurelian for slander.
The latter urged in his defence that the boy was possessed of an evil
spirit, if anybody ever was; that what had been said and done was in
accordance with the rules and regulations of the Church, as laid down
in decrees, formulas, and rituals sanctioned by popes, councils, and
innumerable bishops during ages. All in vain. The court condemned the
good father to fine and imprisonment. As in a famous English case,
"hell was dismissed, with costs." Even more significant is the fact that
recently a boy declared by two Bavarian priests to be possessed by
the devil, was taken, after all Church exorcisms had failed, to Father
Kneipp's hydropathic establishment and was there speedily cured.(379)

(379) For remarkably interesting articles showing the recent efforts