In the Church of the Middle Ages the case is different, and it cannot be presented better than in the following words of the Neo-Lutheran Vilmar, when he would preserve absolutely to the clergy "the power to keep the congregation together by the word, the sacraments and ecclesiastical authority, the power to cleave the head of sin with a single word, the power to descend into a soul in which the enemy has spread the gloom of insanity and force the defiant knees of the maniac to bend and his frenzied fists to fold in prayer, yea, the power [here we have the climax, which is rather tame after the foregoing] to descend into a soul in which the ancient enemy has established his abode, and there fight the insolent giant from the realms of darkness face to face and eye to eye. All this"--continues Vilmar, himself not unlike a frantic conjurer wishing to summon the ghost of the Dark Ages from its grave--"all this is not in the power of the congregation nor of the ministry, who are not endowed with the requisite authority, commission, mandate and power. The congregation (_i. e._, the laymen) is not able to look into the furious eyes of the devil; for what is prophesied of the last days, that even the elect, were it possible, should be seduced, applies with greater force to the especial apparition of Satan in this world: before it the congregation is scattered like flakes of snow, not seduced but terrified to death. Only we (the clergy) are unterrified and fearless; for he who has rejected the prince of this world has placed us before the awful serpent-eye of the arch-fiend, before his blasphemous and scornful mouth, before his infernally distorted face."[12] These words from the pen of a fanatical dualist of our own time well represent, as indicated above, the commonly received views of the Middle Ages; and it is not therefore to be wondered at that the mediæval generations, surrendering personality, threw themselves precipitately, in order to be saved, into the arms of the magical institution of deliverance. The phenomena which are delineated in the following pages will not seem so arbitrary and strange after this introductory glance at the middle-age philosophy, as they might otherwise at first sight. Even they are a product of an inner necessity. Were it possible--and deplorable attempts are not wanting--to revive in the thoughts, feelings and imagination of humanity the dogmas of mediæval times, we should then witness a partial re-enactment of their terrible scenes. To depict them has not only a purely historic interest, but a cautionary and practical as well. II. THE MAGIC OF THE CHURCH.