ly put into her mouth, crunched, and at last swallowed. This
money one could only get out of her hand by force. In the same way she
everywhere found needles. Sometimes she handed over to the people who
stood around her this devil's money, which she had caught from the
walls, tables, benches, stones, and ground. It was good coin, groschen
and pfennige, but there were some bad red ones among it." This
extraordinary occurrence is related in a pamphlet by Dr. Andreas Ebert,
an ecclesiastic; and his account is confirmed by Theodore Duerrkragen,
the president of the city council. Luther, as with hundreds of other
critical questions, was asked his opinion about this: he was
distrustful, desired to know whether it was good money; and at last
advised that the maiden should be sedulously taken to church and
prayers made for her to God. There were some difficulties about this
cure, for the devil in the maiden insulted the clergyman during his
sermon, and gave him the lie. In vain also did a Roman Catholic priest
endeavour to conjure the devil from her, who treated him with scorn and
despised his holy exorcism. The power, however, of evangelical prayer
compelled Satan to depart; the maiden became vigorous and sound, after
her recovery knew nothing of the past, but continued to be, as servant
maid, a useful member of the community.[69]

Such were the ideas of German Catholics and Protestants. Nothing shows
more strikingly the power which Luther personally exercised, than the
influence he gained over his bitterest opponents. The Roman Catholic
dogmas, it is true, withstood his assaults, and between the new
bulwarks of faith which he had thrown up, and the closed fortress of
the old Church, there raged for a century a furious war. But his mode
of thought, his language, and above all the special character of his
spiritual life, influenced the German Catholic Church of his day as
well as the Protestant, in a way which was both peculiar and one-sided.
The rude formalism of her indulgence trade and pious brotherhoods, did
not entirely disappear; but he gave a new tendency to her inward
spirit. Earnest study, acute thought, dialectic skill, and what was of
more value, a greater moral depth, became the necessary requisites of
the Roman Catholic champions. They learnt to preach and compose their
controversial writings in Luther's language and method, even
appropriated the strong abusive expressions of the great heretic, and
sought to imitate