was convinced that no king could reign in France who was not of France's religion. "Paris," he said, yielding to the inevitable, "is worth a mass." In February (1594) at St. Denis he was received into the Roman communion. But Herny was at heart still part Protestant and part Politique. When he had thrust Philip over his frontiers and made an honorable peace, he accorded to his former co-religionists, in the Edict of Nantes (1598) a large measure of toleration. The French Calvinists were secured by a separate military establishment, protected in all rights of citizenship, and allowed to worship under liberal regulations. They soon became the most prosperous and progressive of the inhabitants of France, and in the seventeenth century contributed far beyond their relative share to the nation's industrial and commercial development. The picture which history gives of their church life is attractive in its simplicity, dignity, and orderliness. The congregational psalm-singing, the timed one-hour expository sermons, the systematic contributions, and the exacting discipline are characteristic elements of the picture. The writers of the Huguenot Church, men like Hubert Languet and Philip de Plessis-Mornay, were politico-social rather than primarily theological thinkers. A century after Luther's Theses, the Thirty Years' War began. That period served to establish three forms of Christianity instead of one. Roman Catholicism reaffirmed its tenets in the Council of Trent, Lutheranism in the Formula of Concord, and Calvinism in the Synod of Dort. Protagonists of each of the three still dreamed of making their own the universal faith. Frequent crises arose in Germany over the ambiguities of the Peace of Augsburg, and its terms were frankly violated by the entrance and prodigious growth of Calvinism. Political champions of Calvinism, in well-grounded fear of Catholic strength, formed an armed Protestant union, which was presently confronted by a Catholic league. Calvinist nobles of Bohemia wrested toleration from a weak emperor, but were prevailed upon to accept as heir presumptive a zealous Hapsburg from whom no religious liberty could be expected. Dissatisfaction found leadership in the Count of Thurn, whose rash act of hurling three Hapsburg agents from the high windows of Hratchany Castle in Prague precipitated one of Europe's most disastrous wars (1618-1648). National and dynastic rivalries soon obscured the religious aspects of the conflict. Among the leaders in field and council Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden alone remains an inspiring name. What there was of final victory fell to France, while Sweden and Brandenburg compensated themselves for heavy losses in added territories. The calamities of war suspended the normal activities of civilization. Terrorized peasants deserted their tasks, and forests arose where fields of grain had been. Towns were systematically and repeatedly looted, and returning veterans added the words "marauder" and "plunder" to the English language. Homes were violated and youth forced into the ranks of the soldiery or of the camp-followers. Armies became but the van of a migrant population dependent for provisions on the depredations of the military. Foreign mercenaries led by adventurers ravaged and devastated Germany. Food was dear, and life was cheap. Merciless and ingenious cruelties extorted the last fragment of food, the last ounce of treasure, and the dying fed on the flesh of the dead. For a whole generation great areas were subjected to spoliation and depopulation, and the surviving third of the people of Germany were brutalized. The singular absence of humane agencies in this wasteful struggle can be partly accounted for by the occupation of Church leaders in the lower forms of theological controversy. The Church did not, however, entirely fail to set forth the widely forgotten ideal of a Christian society; but the expression of that ideal was confined to a few of its ministers and saints. John Valentine Andreae at Calw fed and educated many waifs of the war. George Calixtus sought in theology a basis of Catholic reunion. Jacob Boehme's "Teutonic Philosophy" and John Arndt's "True Christianity" (both of earlier date) became the inspiration of a faith that worketh by love. Very distinguished among the men of active good will was John Dury the Scottish peacemaker, who devoted a long life to the promotion of a scheme of European peace based on religious understanding. Directly, Dury sought the unification of Protestantism, ultimately that of Christianity. Twice his plan seemed near fulfilment only to be wrecked; in the first instance by the death of King Gustavus (at the battle of Lützen in 1632), in the second by that of Cromwell. The English Civil War fills part of the same period. But except by the Scottish allies of Parliament England was not trampled by foreigners, and the results were much less disastrous than in the case of Germany. The religious issue lay at first between presbytery and prelacy, but Puritanism revolted from Presbyterianism and became Congregational. Three months after the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War, the head of Charles I fell. Even Scotland was conquered by Cromwell when in 1653 one of his officers suspended the most active agency of its national independence, the Assembly of the Scottish Kirk. When the drama of Cromwell was played out the British Isles had faintly seen the vision of democratic freedom and religious toleration, a vision to be largely fulfilled thirty years later. The Peace of Westphalia gave the princes virtually their old rights in religion, extending to Calvinists the provisions made for Lutherans at Augsburg. But the weakened empire could no longer exact intolerance from the tolerant prince. Emigration was not now in all states compulsory for Non-conformists. The rulers of Brandenburg had already become Calvinist without forcing the conversion of their Lutheran subjects, and the peace gave Frederick William, the Great Elector, sway over a new Catholic population. The elector also desired to replenish the population of his devastated lands from the hardy and progressive stock of French and Dutch Calvinism. Since the hope of uniformity was gone, toleration became the course of obvious expediency. Thus while Stuart despotism drew on the Great Revolution in England, Hohenzollern policy introduced religious liberty in Germany. CHAPTER XII THE SERVICE OF ARMED CONFLICT TO RE LIGIOUS LIBERTY The very futility of the religious wars led to one great result. It was finally recognized that one nation could not coerce another into its own modes of thinking, and the principle of toleration was thus established. HE control of religion by the State was recognized in TH the general principle that the religion of the State should be that of its prince. The course of events intensified this union of politics and religion and brought about the Thirty Years' War. The rivalry between Austria and France would in itself very probably have led to hostilities, but it is unlikely that an exclusively political war could have developed such hatreds, brutalities, and massacre as arose when religious policy and passion were added to political jealousies. It is difficult to apportion blame for this terrible situation. Catholics and Protestants alike seem to have resorted to brute force and terror. The theological and political struggles of the sixteenth century prepared the way for the succession of struggles which for a hundred years made the Continent of Europe a shambles. Political ambitions and religious animosities made a highly explosive compound. The men of the period could think of no method of settling their differences except that of war. In Switzerland, Germany, France, Netherlands, Bohemia, England, men fought to make their religion supreme in the State. There was no other great issue before the people. Democracy had not been born, and politics was hardly more than the ambitions and policies of rival houses. In feudal times war was a matter largely of private concern, the people being victims rather than participants in the struggles of warring nobles. But |