True, their methods differed somewhat: where the
Catholic used holy water and consecrated wax, the Protestant was
content with texts of Scripture and importunate prayer; but the
supplementary physical annoyance of the indwelling demon did not
greatly vary. Sharp was the competition for the unhappy objects
of treatment. Each side, of course, stoutly denied all efficacy
to its adversaries' efforts, urging that any seeming victory over
Satan was due not to the defeat but to the collusion of the
fiend. As, according to the Master himself, "no man can by
Beelzebub cast out devils," the patient was now in greater need
of relief than before; and more than one poor victim had to bear
alternately Lutheran, Roman, and perhaps Calvinistic exorcism.[[117]]
But far more serious in its consequences was another rivalry
to which in the sixteenth century the clergy of all creeds found
themselves subject. The revival of the science of medicine, under
the impulse of the new study of antiquity, suddenly bade fair to
take out of the hands of the Church the profession of which she
had enjoyed so long and so profitable a monopoly.
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