his dangerous path.

In the other case, the Emperor might have succeeded in adding to the
old groundwork of his power, such real strength, that the opposition of
all the ruling princes would be broken, and Germany gradually changed
into a modern state, that would either enclose the individual
governments in perfect unity, or at least concentrate all the highest
powers of government in the hand of one ruler. To form such a state,
the Hapsburgers of the sixteenth century, and with more wilful
obstinacy those of the seventeenth, have striven to the injury of the
German nation and themselves; yet in the year 1519, when Maximilian
died, the prospect opened to an able prince was grand, though the power
of his house was moderate.

The time had arrived when a German Emperor might raise his power above
the heads of all the princes, and with irresistible strength overthrow
every opponent; for just at that time a new power arose in Germany,
imperative in its demands, and capable of the greatest results,--public
opinion. The Reform movement in the Church combined also within it the
germ of great political reforms. Had an Emperor arisen who would have
sympathized with the needs of the German spirit, who would have united
himself with the Reformation, and known how to raise it for his own
aims in an exalted spirit, he would have had it in his power to form
out of the Empire a new state and a united German Church: it was the
highest prize that ever was offered to an ambitious prince; and how
favourable would have been his position! The nation was deeply roused
against the hierarchy and Romish influence, and the Reformation began
with a struggle against the highest of the ecclesiastical electors.
Three Electorates, more than seventy Imperial dignities, comprising the
largest third of the whole country of Germany, were in the hands of
ecclesiastical lords, who would all have fallen had the Reformation
been undertaken by the Emperor and people. The Emperor would have found
in the movement, powers which would have made his Imperial army
irresistible; the evangelical preachers could not in a moment have
transformed awkward peasants into skilled soldiers; but they might have
infused into the armies of the Emperor, much of the enthusiasm and
reckless daring which the best among them made proof of in their own
lives; besides which, comprehensive ideas of political reform sprang up
in the circle of the Huttens and Sickingens; and a German Emp