to practise it. For such a peace the times were not yet ripe --
the minds of men not yet sufficiently enlightened. How could one party
expect from another what itself was incapable of performing?
What each side saved or gained by the treaty of Augsburg,
it owed to the imposing attitude of strength which it maintained
at the time of its negociation. What was won by force was to be
maintained also by force; if the peace was to be permanent,
the two parties to it must preserve the same relative positions.
The boundaries of the two churches had been marked out with the sword;
with the sword they must be preserved, or woe to that party
which should be first disarmed! A sad and fearful prospect for
the tranquillity of Germany, when peace itself bore so threatening an aspect.

A momentary lull now pervaded the empire; a transitory bond of concord
appeared to unite its scattered limbs into one body, so that for a time
a feeling also for the common weal returned. But the division had penetrated
its inmost being, and to restore its original harmony was impossible.
Carefully as the treaty of peace appeared to have defined the rights
of both parties, its interpretation was nevertheless the subject
of many disputes. In the heat of conflict it had produced
a cessation of hostilities; it covered, not extinguished, the fire,
and unsatisfied claims remained on either side. The Romanists imagined
they had lost too much, the Protestants that they had gained too little;
and the treaty which neither party could venture to violate,
was interpreted by each in its own favour.

The seizure of the ecclesiastical benefices, the motive which had
so strongly tempted the majority of the Protestant princes to embrace
the doctrines of Luther, was not less powerful after than before the peace;
of those whose founders had not held their fiefs immediately of the empire,