If reliance can be placed on tradition and the writings of biographers, good men (particularly those of them who took a leading part in the ancient Church) were subjected to dreadful onslaughts by Satan. Not only had they to contend with invisible spirits of darkness, but they were compelled to carry on a continual warfare with the devil, in corporeal shape, seeking to seduce them from their faith. None were more frequently or fiercely assailed than the canonised saints of the old Catholic Church. To their praise, however, be it remembered, that almost invariably the Churchmen, sooner or later, triumphed. Having good consciences, and being protected by wonder-working relics, the saints defied the enemy of mankind. Those seeking lengthened information on the subject should consult _The Lives of the Saints, and the Calendars_, published by learned men, who believed what they wrote, and spoke that which they thought to be true. The subjoined sketches, read in connection with chapter XV., bear out what is affirmed. St. Maurus had an encounter with Satan and a whole squadron of his monsters in bodily shape. At Maurus' rebuke the troop vanished, but not before they made the monastery shake, and brought the affrighted monks to their knees. St. Romualdus may be said to have had a five years' conflict with Satan in visible forms. St. Frances had the faculty of seeing evil spirits when people beside her perceived nothing but natural forms. St. Gregory witnessed the devil entering into a man who indulged in and loved lies. A monk who determined to throw off his habit and forsake the monastery, was set upon by the devil in the form of a black dog. Other monks who broke their vows shared no better. Because a monk had been guilty of hoarding up a large sum of money, contrary to the rules of his order, he was denied Christian burial, and his body was cast upon a dunghill. After mass was said for the miser thirty days, the deceased monk appeared to a brother of his order and told him that he had been in purgatory till that day. From this blessed liberation St. Gregory instituted the custom of saying thirty masses for the dead. A gentleman in Rome, who was excommunicated by St. Gregory for unlawfully putting away his wife, hired certain pagan witches and sorcerers to torment the holy Pope. They caused the devil to enter into the Pope's horse, that it might cast the rider and crush him to death. The holy father, becoming aware of the plot, cast out the devil, and struck the witches and sorcerers with blindness. St. Gregory was entreated to restore the witches and sorcerers to sight, but he refused to do so, lest they should be tempted to return to their wicked art, and read books of magic and necromancy.