181-187; also Langin, Religion und Hexenprozess, as above cited.
In America, the belief in diabolic influence had, in the early colonial period, full control.

The Mathers, so superior to their time in many things, were children of their time in this: they supported the belief fully, and the Salem witchcraft horrors were among its results; but the discussion of that folly by Calef struck it a severe blow, and a better influence spread rapidly throughout the colonies.
By the middle of the eighteenth century belief in diabolic possession had practically disappeared from all enlightened countries, and during the nineteenth century it has lost its hold even in regions where the medieval spirit continues strongest.

Throughout the Middle Ages, as we have seen, Satan was a leading personage in the miracle-plays, but in 1810 the Bavarian Government refused to allow the Passion Play at Ober-Ammergau if Satan was permitted to take any part in it; in spite of heroic efforts to maintain the old belief, even the childlike faith of the Tyrolese had arrived at a point which made a representation of Satan simply a thing to provoke laughter.
Very significant also was the trial which took place at Wemding, in southern Germany, in 1892.

A boy had become hysterical, and the Capuchin Father Aurelian tried to exorcise him, and charged a peasant's wife, Frau Herz, with bewitching him, on evidence that would have cost the woman her life at any time during the seventeenth century.

Thereupon the woman's husband brought suit against Father Aurelian for slander.
The latter urged in his defence that the boy was possessed of an evil spirit, if anybody ever was; that what had been said and done was in accordance with the rules and regulations of the Church, as laid down in decrees, formulas, and rituals sanctioned by popes, councils, and innumerable bishops during ages.