awing maidens
down into the water, whom he made his wives; he served in the cloister
as household spirit; blew the fire as a goblin; as a dwarf laid his
changelings in the cradles; as a nightmare deluded the sleepers into
ascending the roof of the house, and bustled about the rooms as a
hobgoblin. By this last species of activity he sometimes disturbed
Luther. It is true that the ink-spot at the Wartburg is not
sufficiently verified, but Luther could tell of a disagreeable noise
which the devil had made there nightly with a sack of hazel nuts. In
the monastery of Wittenberg also, where Luther was studying Rempter one
night, the devil made such a noise, for so long a time in the crypt of
the church underneath him, that he at last snatched up his book and
went to bed. Afterwards he was provoked with himself for not having
defied the Jackpudding.

Thus deeply was Luther imbued with the popular superstition. But to
this kind of devilry he did not attach much importance; the bad spirits
who employed themselves after this fashion, he very properly called
poor devils. His opinion was that devils were countless. "They are not
all," he says, "insignificant devils, but country devils and princes'
devils, who for a long period, above five thousand years, have been
busy, tempting men, and are thoroughly clever and cunning. We have
great devils who are _doctores theologiae_; then the Turks and papists
have bad insignificant devils who are not theological but juridical."
From them he thought came everything bad upon earth, as for instance
illnesses; he had a strong suspicion that the dizziness he had long
suffered from was not natural; also conflagrations:--"Wherever a fire
breaks out a little devil sits behind blowing the flame;" likewise
famine and war:--"If God did not send us the holy and dear angels as
guards and arquebusiers, who encamp round us like a bulwark, it would
soon be over with us." Expert as Luther was in describing his own
characteristics, he was equally so with the devil; he declared that he
was haughty, and could not bear to be treated contemptuously. Therefore
he advised that he should be driven away by scorn, and jeering
questions. He thought, also, that Satan was a melancholy spirit, and
could not endure gay music.[67]

But it was not in vain that Luther had spiritualized the Church
teaching; it was owing to him that the struggle for eternal salvation
began in the souls of individuals, and that the destiny of