of the empire, and attacked in his
own possessions. The armies of the House of Austria pressed on,
subjugated Pomerania, and were stopped in their progress only by the
ramparts of Stralsund.

And now again the tide turned. Two violent outbreaks of religious
feeling in opposite directions had given a character to the history of a
whole century. Protestantism had at first driven back Catholicism to the
Alps and the Pyrenees. Catholicism had rallied, and had driven back
Protestantism even to the German Ocean. Then the great southern reaction
began to slacken, as the great northern movement had slackened before.
The zeal of the Catholics waxed cool. Their union was dissolved. The
paroxysm of religious excitement was over on both sides. One party had
degenerated as far from the spirit of Loyola as the other from the
spirit of Luther. During three generations religion had been the
mainspring of politics. The revolutions and civil wars of France,
Scotland, Holland, Sweden, the long struggle between Philip and
Elizabeth, the bloody competition for the Bohemian crown, had all
originated in theological disputes. But a great change now took place.
The contest which was raging in Germany lost its religious character. It
was now, on one side, less a contest for the spiritual ascendency of the
Church of Rome than for the temporal ascendency of the House of Austria.
On the other side, it was less a contest for the reformed doctrines than
for national independence. Governments began to form themselves into new
combinations, in which community of political interest was far more
regarded than community of religious belief. Even at Rome the progress
of the Catholic arms was observed with mixed feelings. The Supreme
Pontiff was a sovereign prince of the second rank, and was anxious about
the balance of power as well as about the propagation of truth. It was
known that he dreaded the rise of a universal monarchy even more than he
desired the prosperity of the Universal Church. At length a great event
announced to the world that the war of sects had ceased, and that the
war of states had succeeded. A coalition, including Calvinists,
Lutherans, and Catholics, was formed against the House of Austria. At
the head of that coalition were the first statesman and the first
warrior of the age; the former a prince of the Catholic Church,
distinguished by the vigor and success with which he had put down the
Huguenots; the latter a Protestant king who