_Devil_. Let us proceed a little further, my Faustus, and I will soon convince thee that Ambition is the godhead which ye all worship; although you disguise it under all kind of glittering forms, in order to conceal its nakedness. Till now you have studied man merely in books and philosophical treatises; or, in other words, you have been thrashing empty straw. But the film will soon fall from your eyes. We will shortly quit this dirty country of yours, where priestcraft, pedantry, and oppression reign unmolested and undisturbed. I will usher you upon a stage where the passions have a freer scope, and where great energies are employed to great ends. _Faustus_. But I will force thee to believe in the moral worth of man before we quit my native land. Not far from hence lives a prince, whom all Germany praises as a paragon of every virtue. Let us seek him, and put him to the test. _Devil_. Agreed; such a man would please me for his rarity. The spirit now returned with the baggage, and was sent forward to Mayence to bespeak a lodging in an hotel. Faustus, for secret reasons which the Devil guessed, proposed spending the night with a hermit who dwelt in the hill of Homburg, and who was renowned through the whole neighbourhood for his piety. They reached the hermitage about midnight, and knocked at the door. The solitary opened it; and Faustus, who had dressed himself in the richest clothes which the Devil had provided for him, begged pardon for disturbing the repose of the holy man, and said that the night had surprised him and his companion while hunting, and had separated them from their attendants, and that they should be obliged by his giving them house-room for a few hours. The hermit looked on the ground, and replied, with a deep sigh: "He who lives for heaven seldom abandons himself to dangerous repose. You have not disturbed me; and, if you wish to stay here till sunrise, you must take things as you find them. Bread and water, with straw to lie on, is all I can afford you." _Faustus_. Brother hermit, we have brought all that the stomach requires along with us. We will only trouble you for a draught of water. (_The hermit took his pitcher and went to a fountain_.) _Faustus_. Peace dwells in his heart as well as on his brow, and I may think myself happy that he is not acquainted with that which binds me to thee. Faith and hope serve him instead of those things which I have damned myself for; at least it seems so. _Devil_. And only seems. What if I were to prove that your heart is pure as gold in comparison with his? _Faustus_. Devil! _Devil_. Faustus, thou wert poor, ill-treated, and despised; thou didst see thyself in the dust; but, like an energetic being, thou hast sprung out of contempt at thy own risk. Thou wert incapable of gratifying thy lusts by the murder of thy fellow-creatures, as this saint would if I led him into temptation.