While the theory of diabolical agency in storms was thus
drooping and dying, very shrewd efforts were made at compromise.
The first of these attempts we have already noted, in the effort
to explain the efficacy of bells in storms by their simple use
in stirring the faithful to prayer, and in the concession made
by sundry theologians, and even by the great Lord Bacon himself,
that church bells might, under the sanction of Providence,
disperse storms by agitating the air. This gained ground
somewhat, though it was resisted by one eminent Church
authority, who answered shrewdly that, in that case, cannon
would be even more pious instruments. Still another argument
used in trying to save this part of the theological theory was
that the bells were consecrated instruments for this purpose,
"like the horns at whose blowing the walls of Jericho fell."[365]
But these compromises were of little avail. In 1766 Father
Sterzinger attacked the very groundwork of the whole diabolic
theory. He was, of course, bitterly assailed, insulted, and
hated; but the Church thought it best not to condemn him.
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