From the time of the abdication of Charles V. of Germany the country had, for about sixty years, enjoyed comparative peace. Luther's translation of the complete Bible had appeared in 1634. Nearly one hundred years had been given the plain people to study the word of God, to see what Christ said and what Paul preached, and to compare them with the doctrines of the Church as set forth by the priests of Rome.

The work of Luther was destructive as well as constructive. He tore down what was false in the worship of God. The greater part of the constructive work of his life was formulated in the Augsburg Confession.

The Diet of Augsburg met in the city of Augsburg in 1530. It consisted of leading divines of both Protestant and Catholic faith, and of the princes who upheld the Reformation.

The Protestants set before the emperor, Charles V., on June 25th, 1530, their doctrines in a remarkable document known as the Augsburg Confession, or the Augustana. It is the plain statement of the doctrines of the Lutheran Church the world over, and is the basis from which all other Protestant confessions are largely taken.

Then followed twenty-five years of the successful propagation of the doctrines of the Reformation, and the purified faith was accepted not only in Germany, but in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, the Netherlands and in England and Scotland.

The Council of Trent, the eighteenth Ecumenical Council of Rome, met near the time of Luther's death. If it had been called in 1520, when Luther entreated for the calling of an Ecumenical Council to correct the abuses existing in the Church, it is quite possible that Luther would not have come out of the Church of Rome. If King George III. of England had yielded, even in part, to the prayer of the colonists, what is now the United States would probably have remained a colony of Great Britain.

The Council of Trent remained in somewhat interrupted session for over eighteen years. It was called with some idea of coming to some understanding with the Protestants, and of bringing them back into the Catholic Church. The Protestants paid little or no attention to the call, and the Council contented itself with reforming some of the abuses within the Church, and reformulating the doctrines of Rome.

The reform party at the Council of Trent demanded "wine as well as bread in the sacrament for the laity, schools for the poor, church hymns, preaching and Communion in the language of the people, a better catechism, reform in convents (some of which were mere houses of immorality), and the right to marry for the priests." The papal power called this rank heresy, and the entire council from beginning to end was a disgraceful spectacle. A few subordinate improvements on church discipline were granted, but no important reformation of church affairs, and the farce ended by an exultant proclamation calling down curses on the heretics.

From that day to this it has been Trent versus Augsburg. These two great councils were the most important events of the mediæval period. It is quite possible that the common people did not understand the bearing of the new religious thought, but the great statesmen of Europe saw that what is now called the Dark Ages had passed forever.

"The Protestants," says Ranke, "guided by the Scriptures, retraced their steps with ever-increasing firmness toward the primitive forms of faith and life. The Catholics, on the contrary, confronted with unflinching opposition and repelled with determined hostility whatever could recall the idea of Evangelical doctrines."

At the beginning the Thirty Years' War may be called a religious quarrel, but it soon became for the house of Hapsburg a scramble for personal aggrandizement. Ferdinand II. fought for territory, power and money, and he hoped, by recovering all the property which had belonged to the Catholic Church before the Reformation, he would attain these three objects. He followed this idea, although the formal edict was not announced for several years. It was his intention to break down all princes, both Catholic and Protestant, of the smaller German States, to incorporate Denmark, Holland and Italy (the old dream of Charles V.) into one great empire, and thus restore the old German-Roman Empire. It was a fine opportunity for self-aggrandizement under the guise of fighting for his church.

It was not to the interest of France to have the house of Hapsburg further aggrandized. God used this jealousy and ambition to further the work of the Reformation, so that France, through Cardinal Richelieu, became the ally of Gustavus Adolphus, and furnished a monthly stipend for paying Protestant soldiers, but even more valuable to the cause was the information and advice of this great Catholic ally. It was now believed that Richelieu^[2] even hoped for a confederacy of the smaller German States and free cities under the protectorate of France.

Reviewing for a moment the past, we shall remember that Charles V. was succeeded by his brother, Ferdinand I., who reigned from 1556 to 1564. Maximilian II., his son, was lenient to the Protestants, and ruled from 1564 to 1576. It was during his reign, in 1572, the St. Bartholomew massacre occurred in Paris, in which Catherine de Medicis and her son, Charles IX., caused the murder of over fifty thousand Huguenots, as the Protestants were called in France. The massacre continued three days and nights.

Pope Gregory XIII., on hearing the news, openly expressed his joy at "the glorious event," caused public thanksgiving to be made, and had a coin struck in commemoration of this vile sin. This event gave warning to the Protestants that Rome would take advantage of whatever opportunity offered to destroy Protestantism.

During the great war Rudolph II. ruled Germany from 1576 to 1612, Mathias from 1612 to 1619, followed now by Ferdinand II. Louis XIII., the creature of his minister, Cardinal Richelieu, who, though a churchman, always put the State before the Church, was the ruler of France. He was followed by Louis XIV., whose mother, Queen Anne of Austria, and Cardinal Mazarin ruled till the majority of Louis XIV. The kings of England were James I., from 1603 to 1625, and Charles I., from 1625 to 1649. The Popes were Paul V., Gregory XV., Urban VIII. and Innocent X.

The Catholics now formed a strong league. The Protestants already had a weak union.

Mathias, during a reign of seven years, had favored the Catholics, and caused Ferdinand, one of the most cruel Catholics who ever lived, to be elected king of Hungary and Bohemia.

The election of Ferdinand was a great blow to Bohemia, and the new king lost no time in trying to destroy all the Protestants in his kingdom. Protestants were persecuted as criminals, and when they appealed to the law of the land, the Jesuits replied that Ferdinand's election as king of Bohemia canceled all laws in favor of Protestants.

"Novus rex, nova lex." This they declared was what was meant by the Reservatum Ecclesiasticum in the Augsburg Treaty of Peace. The clause stipulated that the people of each State should follow the religion of the ruler of the State. It is true the clause was there, but modified by two things:

1st. Cities were excepted.

2d. The Evangelical princes had not agreed to the clause and had protested against it.

Ferdinand's action as king, of course, made an insurrection. How could it fail to do so?

The Emperor Mathias became frightened and fled to Vienna, after appointing a regency of four Catholics and three Protestants. The Protestant regents sent a petition to the Emperor, and the Catholic regents at the same time sent a report. Mathias ordered the implicit and instant obedience of the Protestants.

While the seven regents were assembled in an upper room in the palace at Prague to announce the Emperor's decision, Count Thurn, chief of the Protestant party, entered the room with a company of armed men. He demanded of each Catholic regent, "Did you advise the Emperor's arbitrary reply?" Two of them answered evasively, the other two said, "Yes, we did." At this point the four Catholic regents were seized and pitched out of the windows from the third story. They fell on a great heap of barnyard manure and were not killed. But by this the Protestants took the responsibility of saying, "By this act we pitch out of our lives the Pope of Rome, the King of Bohemia and the Emperor of Germany."

The Emperor was in feeble health and desired to make peace, but Ferdinand dissuaded him, and sent an army against these Protestants. The army was driven by Count Thurn and his men to the very gates of Vienna, and were only there turned back by the regular army of Austria.

The winter was coming, and no provision having been made for the Protestant army, the force returned to Prague.

This was to the Thirty Years' War what the firing on Fort Sumter was in the Civil War, or the skirmish at Lexington to the Revolutionary War.

Just after this Mathias died and Ferdinand, king of Bohemia, became Ferdinand II., Emperor of Germany. He, with his Jesuits, determined to retake all property which before the Reformation belonged to the Catholic Church.

In many places all the people had become Protestants, and the church having been built by the money of either themselves or their ancestors, the churches had been used for nearly one hundred years for Protestant services. Americans can understand the situation by thinking how it would be and what would happen if England should now demand that all property owned by the Crown before the Revolutionary War should be restored.

Ferdinand II. was now to force a war upon his subjects which left Europe a great cemetery. During the Thirty Years' War the population of Europe was reduced from sixteen millions to less than six million people. Thirty-five thousand towns and villages were destroyed.

Three-fourths of the population perished in Bohemia, partly by the sword, but also by pestilence and famine, and many emigrated. The question had resolved itself into this, "Shall we permit Protestantism to be forever exterminated?" It took all this sorrow of destruction of property and of human life to bring about political toleration between Protestant and Catholic States.

For thirty-three years Germany seems to have been blind to what was going on around her. The intellectual impetus given by the Reformation made the theological strife between Lutherans and Calvinists bitter and absorbing.

Large districts both south and west of them had been forced back under the dominion of the Church of Rome, and the Germans did not interfere. They had done but little for the Dutch in their desperate fight against the Spanish Hapsburgs and Romanism, so that William of Orange, in bitterness of heart, had said, "If Germany remains an idle spectator of our tragedy, a war will presently be kindled on German soil which will swallow up all the wars which have gone before it." That war was now on.