“There is such an outcry amongst the people,” wrote the Lausitz Superintendent, Zacharias Rivander, “that it deafens one’s ears and makes one’s hair stand on end. The people are so heavy-hearted and yet know not why. Amidst such lowness of spirit many are unable to find consolation, and, so, cut their throats and slay themselves.”[748]--In 1554 the Nuremberg Councillor, Hieronymus Baumgärtner, lamented at a meeting attended by the clergy of the town: “We hear, alas, how daily and more than ever before, people, whether in good health or not, fall into mortal fear and despair, lose their minds and kill themselves.”[749] In 1569, within three weeks, fourteen suicides occurred at Nuremberg.[750]--“You will readily recall,” Lucas Osiander said in a sermon about the end of the century, “how in the years gone by many otherwise good people became so timorous, faint-hearted and full of despair that they could not be consoled; and how of these not a few put an end to their own lives; this is a sign of the Last Day.”[751] Luther himself confirms the increase in the number of suicides which took place owing to troubles of conscience. In a sermon of 1532 he bemoans, that “so many people are so disquieted and distressed that they give way to despair”; this was chiefly induced by the “spirits,” for there “have been, and still are, many who are driven by the devil and plagued with temptations and despair till they hang themselves, or destroy themselves in some other way out of very fear.”[752] He is quite convinced that the devil “drives” all suicides and makes them helpless tools of his plans against human life.--It was to this idea that the Lutheran preacher Hamelmann clung when he wrote, in 1568, that many trusted “that those who had been overtaken and destroyed by the devil would not be lost irretrievably.”[753] Andreas Celichius, Superintendent in the Mark of Brandenburg, was of opinion that such suicides, such “very sudden and heartrending murders,” “gave a bad name to the Evangel in the world”; one sees and hears “that some in our very midst are quite unable to find comfort in the Evangelical sanctuary.... This makes men distrustful of the preaching of Jesus Christ and even causes it to be hated.”[754] Michael Helding, Bishop-auxiliary of Mayence, found a special reason for the increase in the number of suicides amongst those who had broken with the Church, in their rejection of the Catholic means of grace. In a sermon which he delivered towards the end of 1547 at the Diet of Augsburg he pointed out that, ever since the use of the Sacraments had been scorned, people were more exposed to the strength of the evil one and to discouragement. “When has the devil ever driven so many to desperation, so that they lose all hope and kill themselves? Whose fault is it? Ah, we deprive ourselves of God’s grace and refuse to accept the Divine strength which is offered us in the Holy Sacraments.”[755]