expression. The union of Protestantism, subscribed by a large proportion
of its three hundred and seven sovereigns, ran zigzag through the
country, a majority probably of the people at that moment being opposed
to the Roman Church.

It has often been considered amazing that Protestantism having
accomplished so much should have fallen backwards so soon, and yielded
almost undisputed sway in vast regions to the long dominant church. But
in truth there is nothing surprising about it. Catholicism was and
remained a unit, while its opponents were eventually broken up into
hundreds of warring and politically impotent organizations. Religious
faith became distorted into a weapon for selfish and greedy territorial
aggrandizement in the hands of Protestant princes. "Cujus regio ejus
religio" was the taunt hurled in the face of the imploring Calvinists of
France and the Low Countries by the arrogant Lutherans of Germany. Such a
sword smote the principle of religious freedom and mutual toleration into
the dust, and rendered them comparatively weak in the conflict with the
ancient and splendidly organized church.

The Huguenots of France, notwithstanding the protection grudgingly
afforded them by their former chieftain, were dejected and discomfited by
his apostasy, and Henry, placed in a fearfully false position, was an
object of suspicion to both friends and foes. In England it is difficult
to say whether a Jesuit or a Puritan was accounted the more noxious
animal by the dominant party.

In the United Provinces perhaps one half the population was either openly
or secretly attached to the ancient church, while among the Protestant
portion a dire and tragic convulsion was about to break forth, which for
a time at least was to render Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants more