His policy as a deceiver would have been defeated, had he stood forth manifest in such form to mortal eyes as clearly to identify him, and expose his malignity and betray his evil designs towards the human race, while yet in a state of probation with reference to their repentance and salvation. He succeeded with them, for the most part, by subtlety, craft, falsehood exhibiting counterfeit resemblances of goodness, and working through visible agents actuated by him, and instrumentalities which served as screens. Thus, in the first temptation, having no alternative prior to the fall, he actuated an irrational creature, erect, perhaps, originally, in form, and otherwise preëminently adapted to his purpose, but afterwards by the curse (denounced on the visible agent as an intelligent person, in whom the fallen spirit and the animal were united as by a mock incarnation) degraded to crawl upon the ground, and called the serpent; while the actuating intelligent agent was forewarned of the enmity and prolonged hostility which would ensue between him and his followers and the race which he had seduced. The narrative, 1 Kings xxii. 19-23, shows that Satan could inspire false prophets, sorcerers and magicians; and the exercise of that power is doubtless to be supposed in respect to all those who are called false prophets, sorcerers, diviners, &c.; those who inquired of Baal-Zebub, or consulted any of the oracles of the idolatrous party. There are in the annals of sorcery and witchcraft innumerable illustrations of the agency, pretensions and purposes of the Evil One in securing the homage of men, and employing them as instruments of his antagonism. The following notices are taken from "Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, from the most authentic sources. By Thomas Wright, M. A., F. S. A." This work relates chiefly to the sentiments, practices, judicial trials, confessions and executions of sorcerers and magicians, in the thirteenth and four ensuing centuries, in England, Scotland, France, Spain, Germany, and other countries of Europe. A belief in sorcery, as a kind of supernatural agency, was then universally prevalent, and was manifested in two different forms, sorcery and magic. "The magician differed from the witch in this: that while the latter was an ignorant instrument in the hands of the demons, the former had become their master by the powerful intermediation of a science which was only within the reach of a few, and which these beings were unable to disobey." Of this _science_ there were several schools in Europe. The professed object of those who studied it was to acquire the power of coercing the Evil One. In practice, the magicians, tempted by ambition, avarice, or some other passion, generally made "the final sacrifice," that is, formally sold their souls to Satan. Thus, in the tenth century, "Gerbert is said to have sold himself, on condition of being made a pope."