No one urged their fundamental ideas more
fully than Luther. He did, indeed, reject portions of the
witchcraft folly; but to the influence of devils he not only
attributed his maladies, but his dreams, and nearly everything
that thwarted or disturbed him. The flies which lighted upon his
book, the rats which kept him awake at night, he believed to be
devils; the resistance of the Archbishop of Mayence to his ideas,
he attributed to Satan literally working in that prelate's heart;
to his disciples he told stories of men who had been killed by
rashly resisting the devil. Insanity, he was quite sure, was
caused by Satan, and he exorcised sufferers. Against some he
appears to have advised stronger remedies; and his horror of
idiocy, as resulting from Satanic influence, was so great, that
on one occasion he appears to have advised the killing of an
idiot child, as being the direct offspring of Satan. Yet Luther
was one of the most tender and loving of men; in the whole range
of literature there is hardly anything more touching than his
words and tributes to children.
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