man was made
to depend on his own conscience and faith in God. Through this, Satan's
sphere of activity was changed, and the strife of men with the evil
spirit became more especially an inward one. It was not the outward
appearance and clatter of the devil that was peculiarly terrible, but
his whisperings to the souls of men. The preservatives against this
danger were, constant inward repentance, frequent prayer, and an
enduring and loving remembrance of God. Luther's temptations have
already been mentioned; he spoke openly and honestly to his
cotemporaries concerning them, and the race of men who listened with
faith to his discourse were infected by him; inward temptations were
commonly recognized by the Protestants, and on this point also he
became the comforter and confidant of many.

The difference between the old and new Church was first shown in the
conception of the free contract which man concluded with hell. In the
old Church it had been made comparatively easy to believers to escape
from the devil. By certain pious outward observances the Christian
could in the worst case, even when deeply engaged with Satan, free
himself from him in the last hour. Therefore, in the contracts made
between men and the devil before the Reformation, the latter was almost
always the person defrauded; this business-like and immoral method of
reaching the kingdom of heaven excited the deepest indignation of
Luther. He strongly proclaimed the doctrine of St. Augustine; that man
being corrupt through original sin is a prey to the devil, and can only
be put in the way of salvation by continual inward repentance, and that
therefore unrepentant sinners cannot be saved from hell. The result of
this was, that after the sixteenth century, those men who had concluded
a compact with hell were generally supposed to be carried off by the
devil. The sorrowful end of the traditional Dr. Faust is well known; he
was not Satan's only prey. It was generally believed, and published in
hundreds of tracts, that men of profligate character, reckless
drunkards, gamblers, swearers, or enemies against whom a bitter hatred
was entertained, were carried off into the nether regions. And the hand
of the devil was thought to be distinctly perceptible in the twisted
neck of the dying sinner. Luther himself had once to interfere in such
a case. A young student at Wittenberg, an ill-disposed youth, had
invoked the devil, and had offered himself up to him. Luther t