“On a certain night, when he desired to pour forth prayer in secret after his wont, with chanting of Psalms, he was oppressed by very heavy sleep. But he rose from his couch, and put on his cape; and when again he was oppressed with sleep, he took off all his clothes except his shirt and drawers. The sleepiness continuing, he took a censer, and going to the place where fire was kept burning, he filled it with live coal and put incense on it, and a sweet odour filled the chamber. In that hour the devil presented himself to him in bodily form, as it were a large man, very black and misshapen and bearded, hurling at him darts of blasphemy. ‘Why dost thou act the hypocrite, Alcuin?’[62] he asked. ‘Why dost thou attempt to appear just before men, when thou art a deceiver and a great dissimulator? Dost thou suppose that for these feignings of thine Christ can hold thee to be acceptable?’ But the soldier of Christ, invincible, standing with David in the tower[63] builded for an armoury, wherein there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men, said with a heavenly voice, ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? He is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid? Hear my crying, O Lord; incline thine ear to my calling, my King and my God, for unto Thee do I make my prayer.’ With these and other verses of the Psalms the enemy was at length put to flight; Albinus completed his prayer and went to rest.[64] At that time only one of his disciples, Waltdramn by name, who is still alive, was watching with him; he saw all this from a place of concealment, a witness of this thing that took place.” St. Martin himself once had a meeting with the devil[65]. There came into his cell a purple light, and one stood in the midst thereof clad in a royal robe, having on his head a diadem of gold and precious stones, his shoes overlaid with gold, his countenance serene, his face full of joy, looking like anything but the devil. The devil spoke first. “Know, Martin, whom you behold. I am Christ. I am about to descend from heaven to the world. I willed first to manifest myself to thee.” Martin held his tongue. “Why dost thou doubt, Martin, whom thou seest? I am Christ.” Then the Spirit revealed that this was the devil, not God, and he answered, “The Lord Jesus did not predict that He would come again resplendent with purple and diadem. I will not believe that Christ has come, except in the form in which He suffered, bearing the stigmata of the Cross.” Thereupon the apparition vanished like smoke, leaving so very bad a smell that there was no doubt it was the devil. “This account I had from the mouth of Martin himself,” Sulpicius adds.