As God was to Luther the source of all good, so was the devil the producer of all evil and wickedness. He considered that the devil interfered destructively with the course of nature by illness or pestilence, deformity and famine. All that this deep-thinking man preached so firmly and joyfully had formerly pressed with fearful weight upon his conscience; especially when awaking in the night, the devil stood full of malice by his bed, whispering horrors in his ear; then his spirit wrestled for freedom, often for a length of time in vain. It is extraordinary what this son of the sixteenth century went through in these inward struggles. Every fresh inquiry into the Scriptures, every important sermon upon a new theme, threw him again into this strife of conscience: then he reached such a state of excitement that his soul became incapable of systematic thought, and for whole days he trembled with anguish. When he was occupied with the question of monks and nuns, a text of the Bible startled him, which he thought, in his excitement, placed him in the wrong: his heart died within him, and he was nearly strangled by the devil. At this time Bugenhagen visited Luther, who showed him the threatening text.[43] Bugenhagen, probably infected by the eagerness of his friend, began also to doubt, unconscious of the greatness of the misery which it occasioned Luther. Now was Luther indeed terrified, and again passed a fearful night. The next morning Bugenhagen came back. "I am very angry," he said; "I have now, for the first time, understood the text rightly; it has quite another sense." "And it is true," said Luther later, "it was a ridiculous argument; ridiculous indeed for one who is in his right mind, and not under temptation." He often lamented to his friends, over the terrors which these struggles with the devil occasioned him. "He has never been from the beginning so fierce and raging as now, at the end of the world. I feel him well. He sleeps much nearer to me than my Kate; that is to say, he gives me more disquiet than she does pleasure." Luther never ceased to abuse the Pope as antichrist, or the papal system as devilish. But whoever observes more accurately, will perceive behind this hatred of the devil, the indestructible reverence by which the loyal spirit of the man was bound to the old Church. What became to him temptations, were often only the pious recollections of his youth, which stood in striking contrast to the changes he had gone through as a man.