of sundry priests in Italy and South Germany to revive the belief
in diabolic possession--efforts in which the Bishop of Augsburg took
part--see Prof. E. P. Evans, on Modern Instances of Diabolic Possession,
and on Recent Recrudescence of Superstition in The Popular Science
Monthly for Dec. 1892, and for Oct., Nov., 1895.

Speaking of the part played by Satan at Ober-Ammergau, Hase says:
"Formerly, seated on his infernal throne, surrounded by his hosts with
Sin and Death, he opened the play,... and... retained throughout a
considerable part; but he has been surrendered to the progress of that
enlightenment which even the Bavarian highlands have not been able to
escape" (p. 80).

The especial point to be noted is, that from the miracle-play of the
present day Satan and his works have disappeared. The present writer
was unable to detect, in a representation of the Passion Play at
Ober-Ammergau, in 1881, the slightest reference to diabolic interference
with the course of events as represented from the Old Testament, or from
the New, in a series of tableaux lasting, with a slight intermission,
from nine in the morning to after four in the afternoon. With the most
thorough exhibition of minute events in the life of Christ, and at times
with hundreds of figures on the stage, there was not a person or a word
which recalled that main feature in the mediaeval Church plays. The
present writer also made a full collection of the photographs of
tableaux, of engravings of music, and of works bearing upon these
representations for twenty years before, and in none of these was there
an apparent survival of the old belief.

But, although the old superstition had been discarded, the inevitable
conservatism in theology and medicine caused many old abuses to be
continued for years after the theological basis for them had really
disappeared. There still lingered also a feeling of dislike toward
madmen, engendered by the early feeling of hostility toward them, which
sufficed to prevent for many years any practical reforms.

What that old theory had been, even under the most favourable
circumstances and among the best of men, we have seen in the fact that
Sir Thomas More ordered acknowledged lunatics to be publicly flogged;
and it will be remembered that Shakespeare makes one of his characters
refer to madmen as deserving "a dark house and a whip." What the old
practice was and continued to be we know but too well. Taking Protestant
Eng