uble his prayer became like a storm, a wrestling with
God, the power, the greatness, and the holy simplicity of which can
hardly be compared with any other human emotion. He was then the son
who despairingly lies at the feet of his father, or the faithful
servant who supplicates his prince. For nothing could shake his
conviction that we may influence God's decisions by prayer and
supplication. Thus overflowing feelings alternated in his prayers with
complaints and even remonstrances. It is often related how, in the year
1540, he restored to life the dying Melancthon at Weimar. When Luther
arrived he found "_Magister Philippus_" at the point of death,
unconscious and with closed eyes. Luther, struck with terror, said,
"God forbid! how has this organ of God been marred by the devil!" Then
he turned his back on those assembled, and went to the window as he was
wont to do when he prayed. "Now," said Luther, "must the Lord God
stretch forth his hand to me, for I have brought the matter home to
Him, and dinned in his ears all his promises as to the efficacy of
prayer, which I could repeat from the Holy Scripture, so that He must
hearken to me if I am to trust his promises." Then he took Melancthon
by the hand, saying, "Be comforted, Philip, you will not die:" and
Melancthon, under the spell of his powerful friend, began at once to
breathe again, and recovered his consciousness. He was restored.

As God was to Luther the source of all good, so was the devil the
producer of all evil and wickedness. He considered that the devil
interfered destructively with the course of nature by illness or
pestilence, deformity and famine. All that this deep-thinking man
preached so firmly and joyfully had formerly pressed with fearful
weight upon his conscience; especially when awaking in the night, the
devil stood full of malice by his bed, whispering horrors in his ear;
then his spirit wrestled for freedom, often for a length of time in
vain. It is extraordinary what this son of the sixteenth century went
through in these inward struggles. Every fresh inquiry into the
Scriptures, every important sermon upon a new theme, threw him again
into this strife of conscience: then he reached such a state of
excitement that his soul became incapable of systematic thought, and
for whole days he trembled with anguish. When he was occupied with the
question of monks and nuns, a text of the Bible startled him, which he
thought, in his excitement, placed