^f FROM THE LIBRARY OF REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON. D. D. BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO THE LIBRARY OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY ^: :■■«» ^*:^*^>^S?^_^^ In 1894, Dr. Good issued a History of the Reformed Church of Germany, 1620-1890, which presented in a single volume the record of the varying fortunes of the Reformed Church in the Fatherland. It showed the awful persecutions which the Reformed Church had to endure as well as its gradual spread and increase in influence. It was a notable contribution which gave a comprehensive survey of the Reformed Church in t Germany. Some of his critics fornid fault with him for writ- \ ing this history from a partisan standpoint. Yet it should be ^ remembered that in this book Dr. Good defended a thesis * which is now generally accepted as correct, namely, that the j^ Reformed Church of Germany was neither Melanchthonian in n. doctrine nor ritualistic in worship, as was at that time gener- ally believed in this country. The Church must be grateful to the author for having contributed to a correct understand- ing of Reformed history. ^- MAPo inthe 12' J.Z. Sm£d^ 2/ S. Sza^ J?. J^/uZa^7/:>/i:zki HISTOR OF THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. 1620—1890. BY // EEV. JAMES I. GOOD, D. B., Author of the ''Origin of the Reformed Church in Germany" and "Rambles Round Reformed Lands.'" READING, PA.: DANIEL MILLER, PUBLISHER. 1894. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1894, BY REV. JAMES I. GOOD, D. D., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. TO THE MEMORY OF MY UNCLE. EEV. PROFESSOR JEREMIAH HAAK GOOD, PROFESSOR OF DOGMATICS IN HEIDELBERG THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, TIFFIN, 0., THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED. He gave me the first directions how to study Reformed Church history, and my theological views were in perfect harmony with his on the historic position of the Reformed Church. In recog- nition of his kindly influence and useful labors, this book aims to perpetuate his memory. PREFACE. The Reformed Church has a history which deserves to be known, and it is the duty of her children to tell it to the world. This book is a continuation of The Orif/hi of the Reformed Church in Germany and brings the history of that Church down to the present time. It will supply a great want, for no hook has existed in English vvhich covers this perioa or showed why the founders of the Reformed Church in the United States emigrated to this western world. Indeed, there is no single book in Ger- man which covers this ground, as the Reformed histories in Germany are local. This is the first attempt to com- prehend and systematize all the Reformed Church history of Germany. We trust that this contribution to Church history will be a great aid to the Reformed everywhere (especially in the United States), and of interest to all students of Church history of other denominations. The author wishes to say that he has had great difficulty with some of the German proper names, as two forms of the same name are often given by good authorities, as Kirch - meyer (Kirchmeier), Strassburg (Strasburg), Wyttenbach (AVittenbach), etc. Also in the dates of the days of the Thirty Years' War he has found diffigrences existing between good authorities, owing, perhaps, to the change that took place at that time from old time to new. 6 PEEFACE. The author wishes to express his obligations for aid to Eev. F. Brandes, of Buckeburg, and Rev. Mr. Hapke, of Berlin, for aid on the Union in Germany ; to Rev. Mr. Cuno, of Eddighausen, for aid on the doctrinal position of the Reformed Church ; also to Rev. Prof. Charles Muller, of Erlangen ; Rev. Charles KrafPt and Rev. Charles Krummacher, both of Elberfeld, and Rev. S. Goebel, consistorialrath of Munster. He is also under obligations to Rev, Prof B. Warfield, of Princeton, and Mr. Wm. Hinke, for aid rendered, and to Rev. Mr. Dul- les, of Princeton, and Rev. Mr. Gillett, of New York, for books loaned from Princeton and Union Theological Semi- nary Libraries. May this book make the Reformed more familiar with their own Church history, and thus love her more and labor more earnestly for her perpetuity. We would echo the wish of Court preacher Krummacher on page 463. *^ O that the spirit of an Untereyck and a Tersteegen would come again, to revive our Church by the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, that she may do greater things for the Lord in the future than she has done in the past." CONTENTS Book I. THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. CHAPTER I.— Introduction Page 9 CHAPTER II.— The Sufferings of the Palatinate 16 CHAPTER III.— The Quartering in Nassau 76 CHAPTER IV.— The Bravery of Hesse-Cassel 93 CHAPTER v.— The Vacillation of Brandenburg 115 CHAPTER VL— Summary and Results of the War 127 Book II. THE FRENCH REFUGEES. V CHAPTER I.— The Great Elector and Electress 1-t-i CHAPTER II.— The Refugees in Brandenburg 173 CHAPTER III.— The Refugees in Other Parts of Germany 194 CHAPTER IV.— The Results of these Immigrations 210 Book III. THE RAVAGE OF THE PALATINATE. CHAPTER I.— Preparation for the Catastrophe 22& CHAPTER II.— The Political Reign of Terror 240 CHAPTER III.— The Ecclesiastical Reign of Terror 276 Book IY. PIETISM. CHAPTER I.— Introduction 307 CHAPTER II.— The Rise of Pietism 323 CHAPTER III.— The Victory of Pietism 363 CHAPTER IV.— The Effects of the Rise of Pietism 396 o contexts. Book Y. ratioxalism. CHAPTER L— Introduction 411 CHAPTER II,— Rationalism in the Reformed Church 413 CHAPTER III.— Official Answers to Rationalism by the Reformed 426 CHAPTER IV. — Individual Answers to Rationalism in the Northern Rhine 445 CHAPTER V. — Individual Answers to Rationalism in Other Parts of Germany 502 CHAPTER VI.— The Mediating Theology 53O Book YI. the union. CHAPTER L— The Prussian Union 560 CHAPTER II.— The Effect of the Union on the Reformed 565 CHAPTER III.— The Revival of Reformed Consciousness 579 Book YII. conclusion. CHAPTER I.— Statistics of the Reformed Church of Germany 586 CHAPTER II.— The Doctrinal Position of the German Reformed Church 589 APPENDIX 625 Illustrations. Map. Heidelberg Just Before the Thirty Years' War Opposite page 16 The Siege of Heidelberg (1622) " " 38 Landgravine Amalie Elizabeth of Hesse-Cassel " " 108 Frederick William the'Great, Elector of Brandenburg " " 144 Electress Louisa Henrietta of Brandenburg " " 160 The Destruction of Heidelberg (1689) " " 248 Professor John Lewis Fabricius " " 258 St. Martin's Church, Bremen « " 328 Joachim Neander « « 344 Professor Frederick A. Lampe " " 376 Tersteegen's House at Muhlheim " « 455 BOOK I. THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. The Thirty Years' War was a remarkable war. Whether we consider the great length of the war, or its awfnl devastation, or its intricate diplomacy, or the mag- nitude of its issues, each, or all of them combined, make it one of the greatest wars of history. To us it is, how- ever, only interesting for the religious issues that were at stake. And it is especially interesting to the Reformed, because their very existence depended on its results. Three great principles were involved in the war. The first was Protestantism. The very existence of Protest- antism was at stake. It was a combined attack of the Romish princes on the Protestant nobles. Had they suc- ceeded, they would have oppressed and circumscribed the Protestants more and more, until they had crushed them out of existence. This plan is clearly seen in the Edict of Restitution, when the Romisli powers ordered the Protestants to restore abbeys and endowments. Tliis was 9 10 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMAXY. only the begiuniug of the encl^ when they would have compelled the Protestants to give up everything, yes even their very existence. Gnstavus Adolphus saw this dan- ger clearly. He felt that if the Romish powers had once destroyed Protestantism in Germany, it would not be long before they would cross the Baltic and destroy it in Sweden, too. So he left his land to save Protestantism in another land. But the result of the war was that it guaranteed the safety of Protestantism. Since that time there has been no combined attack of Romish powers on Protestants. Protestantism was saved. A second princi- ple at stake was religious liberty. This had been only par- tially recognized before at the Peace of Augsburg, 1555, which allowed Protestants the privilege of existence, but placed too much religious power in the hands of the prin- ces, making the prince the religious head of the people, and " like prince, like people" became the motto. The Protestants were fighting for more religious liberty. The Peace of AVestphalia at the close of the war settled the principle of religious liberty— that a man's faith did not depend on his prince's faith, but on his own conscience. The Reformed may well be proud of their record on this question. For the first prince to declare for religious liberty, even before the pilgrims lauded at Plymouth Rock, was the Elector of Brandenburg, who (1614), though Reformed, gave to his Lutheran subjects religious lib- erty. At the close of the war the Reformed Count of INTRODUCTION. ] 1 Wied (along the Rhine) threw open his territory to the persecuted of all lands ; so that in the same year that Roger Williams suifered banishment from Massachusetts, the Moravians founded a church at Neuwied. Religious liberty was one of the greatest boons of the war. A third great issue of the war was the existence of the Reformed Church."^ The defeat of Protestantism would have crushed the Reformed Church. Its victory saved her. This war may, in a certain sense, be said to hav^e been a " Reformed war.'^ It is true that a Lutheran, Gustavus Adolphus, saved Germany, and so Lutheranism became prominent in the war. But it is just as true that the war was especially directed against the Reformed, and so they come out prominently, too. For it seemed as if the Em- peror determined that if he could not destroy Protestant- ism, he would destroy its most extreme form, Calvinism. He dethroned one Reformed prince after another ; first the Elector Frederick of the Palatinate was put under the ban ; also Duke Christian of Anhalt ; then Duke John Albert of Mecklenburg, besides lesser Reformed princes. He forced Landgrave Maurice of Hesse-Cassel to abdicate, and afterward dethroned Landgrave William, his son. He threatened the Elector of Brandenburg, so that he trembled before Wallenstein for fear his throne, too, would be taken away. And what lands did the Em- * This is a point overlooked by secular historians, but of great importance to us. 12 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. peror most devastate with his armies? The beautiful Rhine Palatinate, the fertile counties of Nassau and the rich lands of Cassel — all Reformed lands. This hatred of the Reformed is farther shown at the Peace of Prague, where Romanists and Lutherans united in a peace which left the Reformed out entirely. But though the war was directed against the Re- formed, it resulted in their complete vindication. The Peace of Westphalia recognized them. Before that peace they had had no legal rights in Germany. They had not been mentioned in the treaty of Augsburg, 1555, (for at that time there were hardly any Reformed in Germany). And as they were not protected by the Peace of Augs- burg, they existed only by right of sufferance, but they were not accredited by law. Their rights could be taken away from them at any time, because they were not pro- tected by law. But the Peace of Westphalia was the first to recognize them as a Church. It was the first to mention them by name. And more than that, it guaran- teed to them their rights. After that they liad as much right to exist in Germany as either the Lutherans or the Romanists. Into tlie labyrinth of the war we have not time to enter. Its campaigns were intricate, and its diplomacy was more intricate. We can only describe the war as it touched the Reformed. In secular history it is usually divided into three parts — the period before Gustavus INTRODUCTION. 13 Adolphus, his campaigns, and the period after his death. But for ecclesiastical history there is a better division : I., to the Edict of Restitution (1629); II., to the Peace of Prague (1635) ; III., to the Peace of Westphalia (1648). I. To the Edict of Restitution (1618—1629). These were years of continual victory for the Emperor ; until flushed with his victories over the Protestants, he issued an edict (March 6, 1629) which ordered that all monas- teries and endowments which the Protestants had taken from the Catholics since tlie treaty of Passau, 1552, should be returned to them. " Thus by the stroke of a pen he undid the work of a century." This edict took away many churches and revenues from the Protestants.* And it not only decreased their power, but increased that of their enemies. For as these properties were restored to Romish bishops, they regained their seats in the German Diet, and the Romish party there was augmented. This edict opened the eyes of the Protestants in Germany. They saw that if the Emperor would take away a part of their property, he would then take away all ultimately. They became so alarmed that they began to combine to oppose the Emperor. This opposition became so serious that the Emperor was led to delay in carrying out the edict for a year. That delay saved Protestantism. For by * After the peace, says Hausser, large territories belonged to the adherents of the Reformed faith : the Electoral Palatinate, Hesse-Cassel, Zweibrucken, Cleve, Berg, and the electoral line of Hohenzollern. These territories were deprived of their legal existence by the last article of this peace and sacrificed to the unlimited power of the Catholic reaction. 14 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. the end of the year Gustavus Adolphus had radically changed the aspect of affairs by his victories. The Cath- olics had lost their power and could not carry out the edict. Still it was not repealed during the war, and at any time when th(^ Protestants became helpless, the Romish Emperor could again enforce it against them. II. The second period was to the Peace of Prague (^lg29 — 35). By the year 1635 all parties had become thoroughly tired of the war. The Romish princes sup- posed the Protestants were so wearied that they would be willing to compromise so as to stop the war. They there- fore threw out the bait to the Lutheran princes that they should come to a peace that ignored the Reformed Church entirely. The Peace of Prague differed from the Edict of Restitution, in that it did not order all properties taken from Catholics before 1552 to be returned, but changed the normal year back to 1627, instead of 1552. It also lengthened the time for restoring these to three quarters of a century. The peace was to last for forty years, and then measures were to be taken to settle matters amica- bly. Almost all of the Protestant states, even the Re- formed, were so weary of the war that they accepted the peace. It came very nearly closing the war. But it did not, because it failed on two points — first of all to guaran- tee the Reformed their rights and their position ; and sec- ond, it failed to reinstate the Reformed Elector of the Palatinate to his dominions. For the Reformed were too -INTRODUCTION. 1 5 large and influential a Church to be ignored. As a result the Landgravine of Hesse-Cassel refused to sign the peace. And finally the new Elector of Brandenburg joined her in demanding rights for the Reformed. HI. So there was a third period to the war (1638 — 1648) — mainly an era of diplomacy, rather than of war. It became evident that the issues of the war were too intri- cate to be settled merely by blood. And so diplomacv came in to cut the Gordian knot. The Romish princes by this time realized that they could not destroy Protest- antism in Germany. And the unsatisfactory results of the Peace of Prague revealed that the Reformed Church could not be crowded out. So the Peace of Westphalia (the negotiations lasted from 1644-48) closed the war. The peace gave the Reformed recognition and guarantee. They were mentioned by name in it, and from that time had legal standing in the empire. The peace also declared 1624 as the normal year, that is, properties that were Protestant in 1624 should be returned to them if taken away. This undid the evil effects of the Emperor's Edict of Restitution. The peace gave back the Palatinate to Elector Frederick's heirs, and also separated Switzerland from Germany, so that the Emperor had no control over that republic. This brief summary shows how vitally this war touched the Reformed. CHAPTER II. THE SUFFERINGS OF THE PALATINATE, SECTIOX I. THE WAR IN BOHEMIA. The beautiful Rhine Palatinate was one of the most powerful states in the German empire. But alas its prince was not as great as his land. Elector Frederick Y., though possessed of many amiable qualities, was not the man of wisdom and action needed for those troublous times. Although head of the Protestant Union (a league of Lutheran and Reformed states of Germany founded by his father), he soon revealed his lack of leadership. He was elected King of Bohemia August 26, 1619. Two days later his rival to that throne, Archduke Ferdinand, of Austria, was elected Emperor of Germany. This placed Frederick in a very awkward position. For it was a question whether, if he became King of Bohemia, he was not a rebel against his Emperor as well as his rival to the Bohemian throne. It was also very evident that if Frederick accepted that throne, there would be war. For Ferdinand was not the man to give up his claim to the Bohemian throne without a struggle. And the Catholic cc - 0) 1— o tr u_ I 1- LU C I 1- _5 lll (0 cn CJ O U- LU m . 1 o f- C/) c — > -a n3 LU O _J 1- co 9 ing, and the wounded stole away in the darkness to Lich- tenberg. Kaiserlautern wa§ also taken. Almost all of its (1,500) inhabitants were put to death by the Croats, and the city was so destroyed that the streets became grown over with grass. \Yhat happened to Kusel was the introduction to what was to happen at Zweibriicken, the capital of the land. Gallas appeared before that city, July 17, 1635. It had as its commander the brave Swedish Colonel Rose, Duke Bernard of Weimar's special friend. There was a small Swedish garrison to whose help the citizens nobly ral- lied. The Reformed pastors, brave Bachman and Wentz, aided in encouraging the people. The soldiers went on the walls, while the old men and women assembled in the Reformed church for prayer. The city was well fortified. But an unfortunate event occurred which almost led to its fall. The palace and castle of the Duke were located just outside of the city wall, but were protected by a strong moat. In this the citadel of the city a new danger appeared. Through the carelessness of a soldier fire broke out. Gallas saw his opportunity and at once ordered an attack on the city. The citizens had to fight both the foe and fire at the same time. They made a magnificent defence, and put out the fire and drove away the enemy. But when it was all over they found themselves in a deplorable plight through want of powder, and were almost compelled to surrender. AVhen Gallas sent word to them demand- 60 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. ing their surrender, they held a council and determined that on the morrow at 8 A. M. they would give up the city. With trembling and praying the night was spent and the awful morning awaited. Early in the morning, however, it was noticed that there was an unusual commotion among the enemy outside. And lo, when day broke, the enemy had departed, because they had heard that Duke Bernard of Weimar was approaching to save his friend, the brave Colonel Rose. The city was saved and the people streamed into the Reformed church to thank God for their deliver- ance. But their season of rest was brief, for in September following Gallas again returned with his army. Unfortu- nately the commander of the city Avas not the brave Rose, but a Frenchman who became so frightened that he sur- rendered without attempting any defence. Terrible were the results on the Reformed inhabitants. Gallas left as commander of the city the cruel Moriame, who allowed all kinds of lawlessness. One hundred and thirty buildings in that little city, among them the city hall, w^ere destroyed. The castle was plundered, the armory blown up. At first the churches Avere not touched, but soon the soldiers broke into the beautiful Alexander Reformed church by forcing an entrance in seven places. In a very short time they had broken out the Avindows and broken up the benches. In its crypt many citizens had stored their A^aluables, thinking that the church AA^ould be spared. The soldiers tore open the 250 chests hidden tliere, and great A\'as the THE RAVAGE OF ZWEIBRUECKEN. 61 spoil. The library in the church was torn open and val- uable historical documents scattered around. Then they went to the sepulchres of the Dukes and tore off the cop- per epitaphs, and robbed and scattered the dead bodies. They found the heart of the Princess of Rohan (which she had ordered to be placed there beside her sister, the wife of Duke John I. of Zweibriicken) and then threw it out from the cellar. The soldiers went to the roof and tore off the lead, so as to make bullets with it. They ^\*ent into the houses of the citizens, digging up the fire-places, seeking for hidden gold. Fi eld and cellar were searched for valuables. They even searched the women's hair and the men's beards for money. Great terror seized the people. No one went out on the street. No Reformed church service was held. While these things were happening at Zweibriicken,' they were more than equalled at Hornbach. The com- mander there was a special favorite of Moriame because of his loose habits. He first demanded money of the inhabi- tants. When he had obtained that, he destroyed many of their houses. The cloister which had been the gymnasium, was almost entirely in ruins. The Reformed church was turned into a stable, the cloister library was scattered be- neath the hoofs of his horses. The first pastor, a son of Pantaleon Candidiis, who had brought the country over to the Reformed faith, faithfully remained with his people, although he did not dare pre«ch to them. The captain 62 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. put him under arrest. ]N'o complaints, no prayers, no offers availed to get him free. Amid the ridicule of the soldiers he was cast into the darkest prison in the city. In a few days he fell a victim to the plague. When it was evident he would not live, the commander allowed him to be taken home on promise of a heavy ransom. He was carried home, but the kindest care of his family failed to save his life. He died on Christmas, 1635. Even after his death the captain oppressed his family most cruelly, so as to get the promised ransom. He heartlessly compelled the son to dance before him, although the son's heart was sad because of his bereavement. Finally the town became so terribly devastated through the violence of the soldiers, that it could not support the soldiers any more, and they had to leave.* Famine soon followed these terrible sufferings. The widow of the Reformed pastor at Rieschweiler died of hunger after seeing her five children starve before her. * What happened in the towns was repeated with ten-fold horror in the country. The inhabitants of Bergzabern fled to the Vosges mountains, where they lived in holes in the ground or huts under the overhanging rocks. They kept watch continually, for if discovered, they were murdered and robbed. Their persecutions were various. Here the enemy plunged men into the deep spring or brook, and there threw them oflf the houses or rocks. Here they burned parts of their legs with indescribable agony or stuck a red hot iron into their open mouth. There they drove iron nails into the shoulders or cut the soles of the feet open and poured melted lead into the cuts. Sometimes they tied the people two and two and hung them like a kettle over the fire, and left them to burn or to die of starvation. Others they would fasten over a hearth fire by a chain, and place a stick between their legs and arms. Then they would seat themselves opposite each other and rock the unhappy one over the flames until death freed the martyr from their barbarities. THE SUFFERINGS OF THE PEOPLE. 63 They ate grass, roots, burdock, nettles, mistletoe and other plants without fat or salt to add to their taste.* Plague followed on the heels of famine. Religious services were given up. Most of the pastors had either died or been compelled to leave. The Duke ordered the few remain- ing pastors to go through the districts to comfort and strengthen the sufferers as far as possible. The schools were closed and the children grew up ignorant, Avild and rough. It is said that sixty Reformed pastors either died because of their sufferings, or were murdered. Finally in 1644 Duke Frederick returned to his land. But what a land ! The country was filled with thorns and thistles. In many places whole towns were deserted, not a cow, ox, goose or rooster was to be found. At Hornbach the number of citizens had become so small that they had to stay within the walls for fear of the wolves who infested the ruins, even by day, seeking food. The boundaries of properties could no longer be found. Gen- erally these bounderies were not needed, as the neighbors had died. The palace at Zweibriicken was a ruin, so the Duke had to live at Meisenheim. Soon, however, the land began to recover under the blessed influences of peace. * In winter their sufferings were the worst. All kinds of leather were cooked and used for food. Mice came in great numbers in the barren fields. These the famished inhabitants gladly devoured. Frogs and even toads were eaten. Carrion was sold and bought. Near Zweibriicken two women got into a quarrel over some carrion, and ended it by the one strangling the other. A boy was caught roasting a part of his dead sister, and a woman was put to death at Zweibriicken for cannibalism. 64 THE KEFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. Churches and schools were reopened. Other Reformed lands raised money. Bachman, the intrepid pastor of Zweibrlicken, traveled through Switzerland and other lands, and was quite successful in raising funds. The Reformed pastors who were living came back. Thus closed the terrible war, and yet through it all the Re- formed people were wonderfully sustained by the bles- sings of their faith and the comfort of their Catechism. CHAPTER II.— SECTION IV. THE PERSECUTIONS OF PFALZ NEUBURG. One of the other Reformed districts of the Palatinate was Pfalz Neuburg. When the Duke of Pfalz Neuburg, a Lutheran, received the district of Julich and Cleve, near Cologne, they contained quite a large Reformed popula- tion. He went over to Catholicism in 1614, and of course the Reformed had to endure many oppressions. These were intensified by the Thirty Years' War, when every effort was made by the Duke to weaken or suppress them. In Julich twenty Reformed congregations were destroyed, and in Berg twelve, and many congregations were forced to give up their churches. In twenty-one churches the Romish service was introduced by force. The Protes- tants were shut out from all public positions. This seemed a great privation, but proved to be a great bless- ing, for as the Reformed were not allowed to enter the state service, they began the great merchant trade, which since that time has filled the valley of the Wupperthal with manufactures, and made Elberfeld and Barmen great laboring centres in Germany. One of the Duke's edicts required all Reformed ministers to be driven out within a month. Often the ministers were pursued in the streets 66 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMA^^^r. and roads as robbers. And when the elders went to meet- ings of Classis or Synod, they would sometimes have their credentials filled out in the fi^rm of a business letter of credit so as to conceal their identity. In many places not only was preaching forbidden, but even the singing of Reformed Psalms. In 1628 eighty Reformed churches were closed in Julich and Berg. The condition of the Reformed had become thus helpless, because the Spaniards had in 1615 taken Wesel, which was the citadel of that district, and from it they dominated the neighboring district in the interests of Catholicism. At Wesel, that centre of the Reformed faith, they introduced the Romish rites. The times changed, however, when in 1629 the Dutch captured that town.* They did it through the aid of a Reformed citizen, Avho made an opening in a part of the city wall that was not watched. The Dutch infantry secretly came in, but the cavalry could not get over the high wall remaining. Then occurred a providence. The Spanish garrison had by this time discovered the Dutch and began shooting at them. One of the first cannon balls struck the chain which held the bridge over the moat in the air, and which no one before had been able to loosen. The chain broke. The bridge fell of its own weight, and over it the Dutch entered the city. After a hard fight for two * A historical novel on the capture of Wesel is " Die Retter Nieder- Wesels," by Horn. THE PERSECUTIONS AT ELBERFELD. 67 hours, the Spaniards were defeated and the cry of jubilee went up from the inhabitants, ^^ The city is Geus (Re- formed)/' This capture of Wesel completely changed the aspect of affairs in Julich and Berg. For the Dutch did as much to protect the Reformed from Wesel, as the Spaniards had done to oppress them. Indeed they virtu- ally saved the Reformed Church there, which otherwise would perhaps have been crushed, had the persecutions continued. Still, although oppressed, many of the Re- formed had kept up their services in caves and woods. We have time to mention only a few instances of the most remarkable instances of oppression. Elberfeld has always been a Reformed centre in that district. Here Kalman, the pastor, held services in 1600, when the church was given to the Catholics, although there were only six families belonging to that faith in the town. The Reformed appealed to the Count of Lippe to intervene, but in vain. They then made a last appeal to the Duchess. The summons to vacate their church wa& sent to them fourteen days before AVhitsunday. When the day came for them to give up their church, the Jesuits already stood outside waiting to take the church as soon as the congregation left it. The minister, to make the ser- vice as long as possible, ordered the congregation to sing the 119th Psalm with its eighty-eight verses, after the sermon. One can imagine with what anxiety they were sung. And lo, before the congregation w^ through sing- 68 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. ing the hymn, a messenger came from the Duke ordering the Reformed to retain the church. The Jesuits, discom- fitted, departed. The Reformed retained the use of the church till 1626, when it was again ordered to be taken away from them, although it had been Reformed for eighty years. And when they protested, the Catholic Duke declared that if any one did not want to go to a Romish service, he could stay away, and go to none. In 1629 their oppression became greater. The Emperor had issued his Edict of Restitution, and Tilly's army was not far away. * The Duke then issued an order commanding all the Reformed to become Catholics. Boos (who was called the chaplain major of the army, and who used to go through the streets of Cologne with a long coat, attended by a crowd of young people praying and singing, with bells and flags, scattering holy pictures among the children everywhere, urging them to return to the Romish Church) was sent to Elberfeld. He asked that a Catholic chaplain be placed at Elberfeld for the sake of the soldiers quartered there. He demanded the use of the Reformed church, and when they refused to give him the key, the soldiers broke in the glass windows and entered by force. They took away the communion table, burned the books they found there, drove away the school teacher and pastor, and forbade those who did not come to mass to use the mills of the town for making flour. The Reformed then appealed to the Dutch to %elp them. Suddenly as a thunder clap out THE PERSECUTIONS AT SOLINGEN. 69 of a clear sky, relief came, for Wesel suddenly fell into the hands of the Dutch, in 1629, and the Catholic power was broken in that district. Solingen was also another Reformed centre, and it too had to suifer. The Duke had placed a garrison there in 1614 and in 1624. Boos came and demanded the church, so that he might hold services for the troops. But the brave Lunenschloss, the pastor, together with the mayor of the town, declared they would not give it up, unless it were taken by force. In 1626 the Romanists broke into the church and celebrated mass. But the Dutch came near, and so the Reformed took it again and held there a service of thanksgiving for its return on November 27, 1626. For this Lunenschloss was dismissed by the Duke, and the mayor put in prison at the toll-gate for six wrecks, where he suffered severely from the intense cold, and the city had to pay 4000 ricksthalers. When they took the church again, Lunenschloss and the congregation went and held services at the city hall. But there Haltermund, the Romanist, so that they might not hold services, cut up the pulpit and benches, until the axe broke in his hand. They then held their services in the churchyard, and Halter- mund reported the names of those who attended. Lunen- schloss was arrested and taken before the captain, and for- bidden to preach. Still he contrived to gather his con- gregation together in other places. In 1629 the Dutch captured the town and relieved them. But soon their 70 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. trouble began anew. The priests came back with the imperial soldiers. They did not at first take the churchy but tried to annoy the worshipers. Thus they burned rags and bundles of straw outside the church, which made such a stench that the congregation had to leave. Then they took the church away from the Reformed. The Reformed in 1644, as they could not hold service in the church, held it on the church steps. For half a year they gathered before the closed church. Lunenschloss often preached there in the severe cold, in snow and rain. On June 11, 1645, the congregation broke into the side door of the church and held a service. On the next Sunday the councillors of the Duke came and took their positions at the pulpit beneath. Lunenschloss w^anted to ascend the pulpit, but they held him back by his coat, and begged him to listen, while all the people cried out : " The pastor shall preach.'^ Lunenschloss finally agreed, and the con- gregation departed. But that night the soldiers came to his house, broke into it, tore him from his weeping fam- ily, while he strengthened them with the comfort, that without the will of the Father not a hair could fall, took him to the market-place of the town, and wanted to shoot him there. Just then, however, orders came to them not to ghoot him, but to transport him to Dusseldorf for trial. When the soldiers in charge of him came to Hilden, a carriage passed them, and as it passed, a noble lady looked out of the window. She inquired what was going on. THE DELIVERANCE OF LUNENSCHLOSS. 71 When she found that the prisoner was Lunenschloss, a Reformed pastor, she ordered him to come into her car- riage. For she herself was a Reformed princess, the wife of the Romish Duke of Pfalz Neuburg. Her name was Catharine Charlotte, and she belonged to the Zweibriicken line of nobles. She was deeply attached to her faith, and had as her private court preacher the learned Hundius, who preached twenty years for her. He preached in her private chapel three times a week, and daily read the Scriptures with her. She was very glad to receive Lunen- schloss into her carriage, so that she might converse with him. Behold now the interposition of God's providence ! The minister, who a few hours before expected to be killed in the market-place, arrived at Dusseldorf in the carriage of his princess. When Lunenschloss was brought before the Duke, the Duke asked him why he disobeyed him by serving his congregation. He said : " Your Highness, it is my duty to obey my God. He has made me a watchman over my congregation, and I must give an account to Him of every soul committed to my charge. Therefore, woe to me, if I leave her through fear of man. On the contrary, I am ready to sacrifice my life for the sake of my congregation and my God.'' The Duke was astonished at his steadfastness, and offered him gifts and honors, if he would renounce the Reformed faith, but he declared that nothing would make him give up his faith. The Duke was impressed by the noble constancy of the 72 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. man, and allowed him to return to Solingen and continue as pastor of his congregation until his death in 1651. The Westphalian Peace brought relief to the congre- gation from their persecutions. This Duchess of Pfalz Xeuberg was a beautiful character. She was very kind to the poor, and greatly aided the Eeformed. The Romanists and her husband often annoyed her by trying to proselyte her to the Romish faith. But against them she drew up a Reformed confession of faith. She died in 1656. Her pastor, Hundius, read to her Psalm 38 : '^ Lord, leave me not." The Lord did not leave her. While her husband in his blindness prayed : " Lord, remember not her unbelief," she prayed her last words : " My Lord, give me more grace than I am worthy of." The Reformed Church of Radevormwald had similar persecutions. In 1626 a priest named Grotfeldt demanded the Reformed church, and when the mayor would not grant it, he beat him black and blue, and entered complaint against him at Dusseldorf, so that the mayor and secretary were taken prisoners to Dusseldorf, and kept there seven weeks before they had a hearing and were released. Then Grotfeldt asked that as chaplain of the regiment he might have his services in the Reformed church from seven to nine A. m., and after that the Reformed pastor could have his service unhindered. But the priest did not keep his agreement long, but barred out the Reformed entirely, and took away their endowments. He also had one of the PERSECUTIONS AT SOLINGEN. 73 Reformed pastors, Pollich, who was very sick, packed in a cart and taken to Cologne as a prisoner, where he died after an eighteen days' imprisonment. He also brought it about that the other Reformed pastor was taken as a prisoner to Kaiserswerth, and kept there for a year and a half till he died. The remaining pastor, Sunderman, was forbidden the pulpit. But if Grotfeldt hoped to gain a quick victory over this aged pastor, he was mistaken, for he bore all the persecutions of the Jesuits with great patience. Though driven from the parsonage and robbed of his income and of the pulpit, where he had preached for forty years, he still bore the persecutions for two weary years, and continued to break the bread of life, although forbidden to do so. Complaints were therefore made against him, as there had been against Pollich. On March 30, 1628, at seven p. m., soldiers broke into his house, took him a prisoner, and although the weather was very cold, took him to Kaiserswerth, where he was placed in a very dirty prison. His arrest caused a great sensation. Both the citizens of Solingen and the Reformed Synod of Berg took up his case, and protested and appealed, but in vain. He w^as kept a year and a half in this prison, for no other crime than his Reformed faith. Then God gave him rest in heaven, September 2, 1629. The congregation was then without a pastor for tliree years. Only a very few went to the Romish service, the great body of the citizens, led by the mayor, remaining true 6 74 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. to the Reformed faith". Then a new pastor, Schorm, began holding services in a private house. The Catholics brought complaint against him to the government, and gained their point. But the punishment they desired for the Reformed minister fell on their own heads. For the Dutch and Swedes came in 1632, took the city and killed the priest in the meadow outside of the town. In 1633 the Romanists came back, as the Austrian army again approached. The town passed from the hands of one army to another. But the Catholics retained the church for service. It was not till 1646 that a Reformed pastor (after the pulpit had been closed for twenty years) again ascended the pulpit. And it was not till 1651 that the church was entirely given back to them. Another illustration is told of the Reformed at Dussel- dorf. As the Heidelberg Catechism was preached upon in the Reformed churches every Sunday afternoon, the Capu- chin monks knew when the ministers would preach on the eightieth question. They would come that day and stand at the door eavesdropping, and listen to hear what he would have to say against the Romish doctrine. They would then denounce the pastor before the court, and he would have to pay a fine, which went into their pockets. It is said that on one occasion the Reformed pastor at Dusseldorf, as he ascended the pulpit to preach on this 80th question, saw two Capuchin monks standing in the church. He was very careful what he said, lest they could PERSECUTIOX AT DUSSELDORF. 75 bring charges against him. But at the end of the sermon, he gave out the 39th Psalm, whose first verse is based on the text : '^ I will take heed unto my ways that I sin not with my tongue. I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the luicked are before me." The monks heard it and never troubled him again. These serve as illustrations of some of the persecutions of the Reformed in Pfalz Neuburg. Nobly and bravely they remained true to their Reformed faith, and thus laid the foundations of what is now the Reformed centre of Germany, the Lower Rhine. CHAPTER III. THE QUARTERING IN NiSSAU. SECTION I. NASSAU BEFORE THE COMING OF THE SWEDES. East of the Rhine, near the city of Frankford, was a district filled with counties ruled by lesser princes, called the Wetterau district. Of these the Counts of Nassau, Solms, Hanau, Isenberg, Sayn and AVied, were Reformed. There Avere four Nassau princes who were Reformed — the Counts of Dillenburg, Siegen, Hadamer and Dietz. These Nassau princes, although their sympa- thies were with Frederick of the Palatinate, yet out of fear of the Emperor withdrew from the Protestant Union and declared themselves neutral. Even Count John of Siegen, who had been in the Palatinate service for thirty years, left it and returned to his land. But neutrality did not save them. Their lands were rich and they were weak. So the Emperor used them as the places for quartering his armies. As early as 1622 the imperial general An- holt devastated a large part of Nassau. Then Tilly came from the Palatinate and quartered his troops there. This he did for five successive years. And then, as if one PERSECUTIONS IN SIEGEN. 77 army had not destroyed enough, finally Wallenstein also came with his army. And what one army had not plun- dered, the other came to complete. Several other events also greatly added to the suffer- ings of the Reformed. Siegen received for its ruler a Catholic in 1623. This prince, called Count John the Younger, had been carefully educated by his father. Count John the Middle, who sent him to Geneva, where he lived for a time at the house of Beza, but later, while on a jour- ney to Italy in 1613, the Jesuits converted him to Rome. His father, when he died, ordered that the son sheuld not attempt to change the religion of his Reformed subjects. But in 1624 he began introducing Romanism by bringing in the Jesuits, to whom he gave the cloister church of Sie- gen. On May 11, 1626, he took all the churches from the Reformed and ordered all their ministers to leave the land. The only Reformed minister permitted to remain was his mother's private chaplain, who was permit- ted to hold services only in her room. He established a Jesuit college at Siegen, and compelled two of the Re- formed congregations to allow the Catholic worship in their churches. In many other Avays he embittered the lives of his Reformed subjects. He finally fined them a gold gulden for not attending mass. And when they asked that at least they might be permitted to have the Heidel- berg Catechism, if they could not have their church services, he refused them. They began, for the sake 78 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. of their Reformed faith, to emigrate to Hesse-CasseL This he also forbade. He did not allow them honorable burial. Thus, in 1639, a woman named Heipels, was left unburied for three days, and then only allowed to be bur- ied in her own garden, not in the cemetery. In 1630 Hans Altgeld, his wife and daughter had to be buried in a hole before their door in their garden. The Count would not allow them to be buried in the cemetery, because they were Reformed. A prominent citizen, a member of the Reformed congregation, died at Siegen. With the great- est difficulty his family gained permission to bury him in his own yard, but the Romish authorities would allow no funeral procession. So his son-in-law and brother-in-law had to bury him quietly. Some of the persecutions of the Jesuits, in order to make converts, Avere silly. Thus the women of Siegen were accustomed to bleach their linen before the gate of the city. The Jesuits would come and take away the linen of those who were not Catholics. They would also prevent the cattle of those who were not Romanists from being driven out for three days, thus greatly inconveniencing the OAvners. Another terrible blow the Reformed of Nassau received was the conversion of Count John Lewis of Hadamer to Romanism. The Jesuits, ever on a watch to make converts, trumped up a charge at Vienna against the Nassau Counts, namely that they had placed ten sol- diers in Frederick's army. Tlie Counts were summoned THE COUNT OF HADAMER's DEFECTION. 79 to VieiiDa to answer for this treason to the Emperor. They held a meeting in 1629, and decided to send the Count of Hadamer, who was a brilliant orator and a fine scholar, to plead their cause. On his way to Vienna, at Mayence, he fell in with a Jesuit named Ziegler, the con- fessor of the Archbishop of Mayence, who had formerly been Reformed. The Count considered himself quite skillful in debate. The wily Jesuit inveigled him into a debate, and discovered that the Count was not fully sure of his position. He sent word ahead to Vienna, and when the Count arrived there, all unknown to himself the Jesuits laid a plot to draw him into the Romish Church. He was received with great honor by the court, and invited to the laying of the corner-stone of the cloister on the Kahlenburg, just north of Vienna. There the Empe- ror had him dine with him, and placed opposite to him Lenormain, his confessor. Of course the Count and the confessor were soon in a heated debate, lasting seven hours, in which the Count proved a rather poor match for the shrewd Jesuit. He made damaging admissions which were used against him. Finally, hounded on every side, he was persuaded, instead of going to his lodgings, to go to one of the Jesuit novitiate houses. He might have known that this half step toward Rome would comprom- ise him. Here they arranged that a Jesuit of the county of Nassau should meet him. This man pointed out to 80 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. him the errors of the Protestant Bible.* The Count, after remaining in this house for seven days, confessed that he saw many errors in Protestantism. The next day he permitted masses to be read for him, and at the end of the second mass he cried out to the priest : " My father, I am a Catholic, and so will I live, and so will I die." After his conversion the charges against the Nassau Counts were withdrawn. In return for his conversion the Emperor ordered the Austrian arm'es to withdraw from his territory, and he was honored with the appointment of chamberlain to the Emperor. The news of his conversion to Romanism caused a tre- mendous sensation in Siegen. Niesener, the Reformed pastor, was commissioned to break the news to the Count's Reformed wife, w^hose motto had been " firm in the faith." As he made know to her her husband's apostasy, she fainted away. When she had revived, he encouraged her to remain true to the Reformed faith. She nobly replied : ^^ I would rather be divorced from my husband and go out of his land a beggar, than leave my faith. The Count returned, December, 1629, bringing Jesuits with him, who two months later began holding Romish services. The * The Reformed Bible, translated by Piscator, was in common use in Nas- sau, instead of Luther's translation. The Lutherans had been jealous of it, for fear it might supplant Luther's. It's enemies called it the " Strafe mich Gott" Bible, because in Mark 8:12 "There shall no sign be given to this con- gregation. Amen," Piscator had exaggerated the Amen into the strong Ger- man phrase, " Strafe mich Gott." Possibly this was one of the glosses, to which the Jesuit called the attention of the Count. COUNTESS URSULA. 81 Count then ordered the Reformed ministers to either leave or become Romanists. By the end of 1630 not a Reformed minister was left in all the land except his wife's private chaplain, and Niesener who was put under house arrest. The Romish priests took all the Reformed churches and finally brought charges against Niesener, for which he was arrested and taken to Cologne, where he was imprisoned in a miserable prison for a year, before he was found inno- cent. Countess Ursula remained true to her faith. She was one of the '^ saints of the Reformed Church.'' Three hours every day she spent in prayer. She was very kind and liberal to the poor. When the plague broke out, she went like an angel of mercy ministering from door to door. The Jesuits tried in every way to convert her, but she was ready to silence them with an answer from the Heidelberg Catechism. The purity of her faith and life compelled even the Catholics to admire her. The leading Jesuit con- fessed that such a heretic as she outweighed many a dozen of Catholics in God's sight. At her death in 1638 she greatly longed for the ministrations of a Reformed minis- ter, as the Jesuits tried to convert her on her deathbed. But she remained steadfast and firm. One of the Jesuits afterward wrote : '^ We mourn that this precious silver vessel remained to the last tainted with heresy." After her death the Romanists had entire control of Hadamer. And so the Reformed lost control of two of the Nassau lands, Siegen and Hadamer. 82 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. The Catholics also gained control of another of the counties of the AVetterau. For Count John Albert of Solms, a man of great piety and devotion to the Keformed Church, had been an officer in the army of King Fred- erick of Bohemia. For this he was put under the ban by the Emperor and deposed. The Spaniards took posses- sion of his land, fearfully ravaging it and driving out the Reformed ministers. Count John Albert greatly mourned the sufferings of his land ; so much so that a friend said to him : " Brother, you are a real martyr, although you have not shed any blood." Nearly all the Reformed . ministers were driven out of Solms, and their places taken by Romish priests. These events, together with the oppressions of the imperial forces greatly discouraged the Reformed. The Edict of Restitution added to their sufferings, as it took away most of the endowments which supported the Reformed university of Herborn. This toAvn was repeat- edly plundered. It was destroyed in 1626 and after- wards in 1634 by fire. As a result the university was well nigh destroyed, only four professors remaining in it. Owing to the oppressions of the enemy, the years 1628 and 1629 were years of famine. Many made bread of acorns, hemp seed and roots. Plague followed, during which whole families died and whole villages were depopulated. The severity of these sufferings seemed almost to have turned the heads of the poor people, for a strange infatu- ation for witchcraft broke out among them. Between the BELIEF IX WITCHCRAFT. 83 years 1629 and 1632 thirty-five witches were executed at Dillenberg, ninety at Herborn, and thirty at Drierdorf. A girl at Amsdorf with many tears told her father on May 1, 1831, that she Avas a witch. He felt it his duty to tell it to the authorities of Herborn, and for it she was executed. Sometimes the witches would be put to such severe tor- tures that on the following day they would be found dead in prison. Many superstitious people believed that it was not the torture that killed them, but Satan. Thus a widow was found dead at Herborn, after having been tortured the previous day. The superstitious ones then remembered that when she was tortured, a bat as large as a cat came into the place of torture. This they declared was the devil. The superstitious people believed that if Avitch powder were spilled on the trees, there would be no fruit ; if on the fields, no grain ; if on the wind, bad weather. Almost every town had its locality where witches were said to dance. And yet, while we may be tempted to smile at these things, we should rather pity the poor people. For as one writer says : '^ The terrible sufferings of the times gave them universal melancholy.'^ To the credit of the Reformed ministers be it said that they tried to stem the tide of popular opinion in favor of witchcraft by warning the people against it. Thus wars, oppression, persecution, famine, plague and witchcraft made tlie early years of the war most deplorable to Nassau. CHAPTER III.— SECTION 11. FROM THE COMING OF THE SWEDES TO THE END OF THE WAR. A better clay dawned on these counties of the Wetterau as Gustavus, the Gideon of his age, appeared. The Swedes came to Nassau in November, 1631, led by a captain born in Herborn. Their strict discipline and high morals con- trasted favorably with the terrible immorality and cruelty of the imperial army. Especially did the Laplanders in the Swedish army excite curiosity, because they were so small of stature, wore reindeer clothing, and carried bows and arrows. Everywhere the Swedes were welcomed as deliverers. The Nassau Princes had learned by sad experi- ence that neutrality was more expensive than war, for the imperial army had forced thousands of gulden out of their lands by their quartering for so many years. So some of them gave up neutrality and openly joined the Swedish army. The leading Prince of the Nassau line was Count Lewis Henry of Dillenburg. He entered the Swedish army with his forces, taking with him his Reformed chaplain Vigelius. Better days now came to the Reformed ofthe counties of Siegen and Hadamar. The Jesuits either left or were compelled to leave, because of the hatred of the COUNT JOHN MAURICE. 85 people. The Reformed ministers began to come back from other lands to their shepherdless flocks. During the years of the Swedish rule, there came back to Nassau a prominent prince, Count John Maurice of Nas- sau Siegen. He was the younger brother of Count John the Younger of Siegen, who had gone over to Romanism. Their father, to prevent his Catholic son from gaining all the territory, had divided it by his will among his three sons. But Count John Maurice had never gotten his por- tion, because his Catholic brother, with the aid of the Emperor, had kept it from him. Now, however, when the Swedes came, Count John Maurice came back to Siegen to take his rights, from which the Emperor had so unjustly deprived him. Many years before he had entered the Dutch military service, and had become private secretary to Prince Maurice of Orange. Then he rose in the Dutch army to a high position. He now came back to Siegen to restore his beloved Reformed faith to that land. He called Professor Irlen of Herborn to re-introduce the Reformed religion. He had a locksmith break down the altars which the Romanists had erected in the Reformed churches (for the Reformed churches have no altar, only a communion table). He also revived the Reformed gymnasium at Siegen. The death of Gustavus Adolphus, however, checked many of these favorable movements.* The defeat of the Swedes at ■:;:- Although Gustavus was a Lutheran, many memorial sermons were preached on his death in the Reformed churches, in which he was likened to King Josiah of the Bible, S6 THE REFOEMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. Nordlingen having broken their power, Count John Maurice had to leave, and his Romish brother came back to re-introduce Romanism into his land. Count John Maurice was sent by the Dutch West India Company to Brazil in 1636, for which he afterwards received the name of " the Brazilian." He took with him his Reformed chaplain Plante, and at once set to work to introduce the Reformed faith into the new world. Cal- vin's Reformed colony to Rio Janeiro in 1557 had turned out a failure. Count John Maurice now tried to intro- duce the Reformed faith again. He aimed to snatch South America from the power of the Jesuits and its natives from heathenism. As early as 1623 Prof. Walaus had started a Foreign Mission School at Leyden, so that the Dutch Church was early showing a missionary zeal which led to large missionary operations in both the East and the West Indies. Count John Maurice therefore soon sent back to Holland for more ministers to evangelize among the natives, and in 1637 eight Reformed ministers were sent out. These preached in Dutch, French, Portuguese and English. Soller and Polhemius preached in Olinda, Peolius in Tamarica, Ratherlarius (an Englishman) at Parahiba. In the province of St. Augustine, Stetinus pro- claimed the gospel, as did Eduardi at Serinhsen. The gos- pel was also preached in the province of Maragnana. These ministers endeavored to preach in the villages near their parishes to the natives. For they found that the MISSIONARY EFFORTS. 87 Jesuits who had been there under the Portuguese, had tried missionary work, but as usual in a superficial way. They did not translate the Bible, but were satisfied if the natives had learned the Creed and the Lord's Prayer. The Dutch ministers labored, however, to bring them to an experimental knowledge of spiritual things. In doing this, the Count's court preacher, Plante, set the example, but others were very zealous in doing missionary work, as Casseber at Recissa. Doriflarius became quite eloquent in preaching in the native language, and translated the Heidelberg Catechism into the Tapuya dialect of Brazil. Thus, wherever the Dutch flag waved, there arose the standard of the cross, under which a Reformed congrega- tion was formed. These zealous ministers also formed themselves, according to the Presbyterial government com- mon in Holland, into Classes and Synods. They labored hard to plant a Reformed Church in South America. Long before William Penn, Count John Maurice began the policy of fair dealing with the Indians. He placed in every native village in his colony a Dutchman, whose duty it was to see that the natives were not cheated, but had their rights and were paid for their goods. The natives, therefore, very highly honored him. One of the Indian chiefs gave him a costly dish, which he afterwards pre- sented to the Reformed church at Siegen, in Germany. But differences arose between the Count and the Dutch West India Company. In 1645 he returned to Holland, 88 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. bringing twenty-five tons of gold with him, and was received with high honors by the government. In 1654 the Portuguese defeated the Dutch in Brazil. The colony fell and the Reformed churches were lost. Brazil, instead of becoming Protestant and Reformed, became Portuguese, and under the Jesuits one of the most Romanist of lands. The Dutch afterwards exchanged their colony at New York with the English for what is now Dutch Guiana, in South America, (where there are now about 7,000 Reformed). Thus the Dutch colony in South America failed, as had the French colony in the century before, but none the less should the Reformed have the credit of trying to plant two colonies in South America to save the heathen, the first efforts made by Protestants to evangelize in this western continent. Count John Maurice, when he returned to Europe, found that his Catholic brother at Siegen had died. So he went to Siegen to gain the property left him by his father. He re-garrisoned Siegen and re-introduced the Reformed faith there by calling Professor Irlen from Herborn to introduce it.* He showed his appreciation of the Reformed by presenting the Reformed church at Siegen with costly presents, and at his own expense he remodeled the St. Nicolas church. Count Lewis Henry of Nassau Dillenburg soon revealed in the Swedish army that he was one of Gustavus' bravest generals. Gustavus at once noticed his qualities as a sol- * Siegen is now one of the most Reformed districts in Germany. BRAVERY OF COUNT LEWIS HEXRY. 89 dier and took quite a fancy to him. For at the crossing of the Rhine at Oppenheim the Count was one of the first to bravely face the fire of the enemy. He had learned the art of war under Count Maurice of Orange in the Nether- lands, and now he completed his education under Gustavus Adolphus. He was a giant in stature. He soon gained fame by his successful attack on the toAvn of Braunfcls (1635), which was the only victory gained by the Swedes immediately after their terrible defeat at Nordlingen, and which seemed to some extent to atone for that defeat. He marched his troops over the snow by night and came to the town of Braunfels at six o'clock in the morning. Before his troops were discovered, his soldiers were on the wall of the town. The garrison soon surrendered. When he returned from this victory, the magistrates and professors of the University of Herborn met him at the gate of Herborn, Avhere Dr. Irlen made an address, in which he compared him to Joshua and Agamemnon. His success, however, not only gained him fame, but also called the attention of the Emperor to him as a dangerous enemy. The Austrians sent their armies against him, which besieged Dillenburg, his capital. But his garrison made such a successful sortie that the imperial forces agreed to give up the siege, pro- vided he would pay them 10,000 ricksthalers bounty. When the Peace of Prague was published, strange to say, he signed it and exchanged the blue sash of the Swedes for the red of the Emperor. He may have gone over to the 7 90 THE REFOEMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. Emperor because he suspected that the Romish Count of Siegen was plotting with the Emperor to gain his territory. The Emperor gladly received so brave a general into his army. But Lewis' people were not satisfied with the change, and many looked upon his action as nothing less than trea- son to the Protestant cause. Some of his officers refused to serve any longer under him, and many of his soldiers deserted. His cavalry for a quarter of a year absolutely refused to take tlie oath to the Emperor. The Emperor employed him to capture small forts, an art in which he was signally successful, as Montabour, Amoneburg and others. His most successful capture, however, was Hanau. This famous city consisted of two parts, an old and a new city, the latter founded by the Reformed refugees in 1597. Countess Catharine Bel- gica, a descendant of AYilliam of Orange, ruled the land in the early part of the Thirty Years' War with rare wisdom, until her son, Count Philip Maurico, ascended the throne in 1627. When Gustavus Adolphus came, the Count of Hanau joined the Swedes, who placed a garrison at Hanau under the command of the Scotch general Ramsay. After the defeat of the Swedes at Nordlingen, this fort remained the only Swedish fort in that part of Germany. It was defended by the brave Ramsay with great ability. When the Peace of Prague was published, the Count of Hanau accepted it and joined the Emperor. He returned to Hanau from Metz, whither he had fled. Bat when the THE CAPTURE OF HANAU. 91 Count began issuing orders to the inhabitants of Hanau forbidding the people to pray for the success of the Swedes against the Emperor, Ramsay put him under arrest for spreading treason against the Swedes. When Count Lewis Henry of Dillenburg heard that his cousin, Count Philip Maurice, was under arrest in his own castle in Hanau, he determined to rescue him. He suddenly appeared before Hanau, February 21, 1638, with 700 men. He seized the fortifications at the mill by the red house, and captured the castle and rescued the imprisoned Count of Hanau. Ram- say meanwhile shut himself up in the new city, and pre- pared to stand a siege. But he was severely wounded at his residence at the White Lion Hotel. He therefore sur- rendered, February 23, 1638. As soon as his wound per- mitted, Ramsay was taken a prisoner to Dillenberg, where he arrived March 24, 1538. But his proud spirit revolted against the idea of being a prisoner. He hoped that he might be exchanged for the Austrian cavalry general, John of Werth. Some dispute, however, with the Austrian gov- ernment about 50,000 ricksthalers prevented this. Finding that he was not to be exchanged, he became morbid under his imprisonment and somewhat unruly. Still he was always glad for the visits of the Reformed ministers, for he himself belonged to the Scotch Reformed or Presbyterian faith. Corvinus, the rector of the Reformed University of Herborn, frequently visited him, and conversed with him in Swedish and English. Ramsay finally died, a disap- 92 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. pointed man, after nearly a year's imprisonment. As no effort was made to have his body returned to his native land of Scotland, he was buried in the Reformed church at Dillenburg, where his tomb is shown to this day. During the latter part of the war, Nassau and the other "Wetterau districts, like the Palatinate, suffered severely. Army after army passed over these lands. One writer says : '' On the one side w^ere Swedes, French, Lapps, Scotch-Irish, and on the other Spaniards and Bavarians, and no one knew which were friends or foes." ^^ When they had marched through," said a minister, " it looked as if Lucifer or Beelzebub had passed by." When the war was over, houses could be found which had been so long deserted that a cherry tree had grown up from the hearth through the chimney and spread its boughs over the roof. Famine and pestilence raged. Many of the villages were reduced to one 'family. No wonder then that the Peace of West- phalia w^as welcomed with great joy. By it the Reformed in the counties of Siegen and Hadamer were again allowed their Reformed worship, although the Count of Hadamer tried hard to prevent it as much as possible.* ■'• In 1742 the Nassau lands passed into the hands of the House of Orange, and the Reformed had greater liberty and power after that. CHAPTER IV. THE BRAYERY OF HESSE-CASSEL. Hesse-Cassel deserves special mention in the Reformed history of this war. She should receive double credit, both for her bravery and for her persistence for the Reformed faith during the war. She was the only land that continuously opposed the unjust oppressions of the Emperor during the ivhole of the tear. For even the Peace of Prague, Avhich tempted so many German princes to make peace Avith the Emperor, failed to win Hesse-Cassel to make peace until her wrongs were righted. SECTION I. THE ABDICATION OF LANDGRAVE MAURICE. This distinguished Reformed prince was a scholar, as well as a noble. He was as learned in all the sciences and philosophies of his day, as he was in statesmanship. A far better leader would he have been for the Protestant Union than the young, inexperienced Frederick V. of the Palatinate. He was one of the most broad-minded, far- seeing of the Reformed statesmen of Germany. He was one of the first to suggest a general Protestant Diet, which should destroy Austria and the Papacy. But Frederick 94 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. was not willing for that, and began the movements which led to his election to the throne of Bohemia. Landgrave Maurice disapproved of Frederick's acceptance of that throne, but he still remained true to the Protestant Union. Spinola, the Spanish general, by a quick move toward Mayence, cut INIaurice off from the other armies of the Protestant Union in Southern Germany. His OAvn nobles, as well as the approach of the Spanish army, compelled him to retire from the Union as it fell to pieces. When he heard how unjustly Frederick had been deposed by the Emperor, he became very angry. Still he could do noth- ing, for Spinola's a-rmy was on his borders. Tilly's Aus- trian army came in 1623, fearfully ravaging Hersfeld and Eschwege. Tilly took the old abbey of Hersfeld from the Reformed, and gave it to the Jesuits. But like a thunder clap out of a clear sky there came the Emperor's order to him in 1623 to give up Upper Hesse (which he had occupied for eighteen years) to the Landgrave of Hesse- Darmstadt. The latter Avas a Lutheran, and had brought charges against Maurice that he had violated the will of the previous Elector of Upper Hesse. Landgrave George of Upper Hesse had ordered in his will, that no religion should be introduced into Upper Hesse except the Luth- eran. The Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt charged Mau- rice with breaking that clause in the will, Avhen he intro- duced the Reformed faith into Upper Hesse. And yet Maurice had introduced the Reformed faith into Upper LANDGRAVE MAURICE's REVERSES. 95 Hesse eighteen years before, but nothing had been said of it till the Thirty Years' War exposed Maurice's weakness. Then his rival and his Emperor took up the matter against him.* The Emperor seems to have gladly agreed, for he saw in this another opportunity to get rid of a Reformed prince. His decision was most unjust, for he had not even given Maurice a hearing. And to completely cripple Mau- rice, the Emperor not only decided against him that he had forfeited the Upper Hesse, but to make it as severe as possible, he ordered Maurice to pay seventeen million gulden, which was supposed to represent the revenues Maurice had secured during the eighteen years he had had control of the land. The Emperor, to make Maurice's position still more hopeless, commanded him to raise this large sum of money and leave Marburg within the very short time of six weeks. All this makes it very evident that the Emperor intended to crush him. The Emperor appointed the Electors of Cologne and Saxony to carry out this decree ; and if they found it necessary, they could call to their help the troops of the Catholic League. In vain did Maurice and the states of the German empire protest and appeal against this decision. Almost before Maurice was notified, Tilly's army was in the southern part of his -■• The truth of the matter was, that Landgrave Lewis of Hesse-Darmstadt was considered by the Protestants as "the Judas of the war," as he was always playing into the hands of the Emperor, especially if there would be any per- sonal gain by it for himself. He, therefore, aimed to get Upper Hesse in this way. 96 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. land, while the Elector of Cologne with the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt entered Upper Hesse. They took not only Upper Hesse, but also Smalcald, Katzelnbogan and other parts of Hesse, about which the Emperor's decree said nothing. Wherever they went, the Reformed min- isters had to flee, and Lutherans were introduced. Land- grave Lewis of Hesse-Darmstadt took Marburg and sum- moned its Reformed ministers before him. John Crocius, the rector of the university, claimed that Landgrave Mau- rice had not done anything contrary to the will of the deceased Landgrave, or contrary to the Augsburg Confes- sion, when he introduced the Reformed religion. But his address had no effect. They took from him by force the sceptre, keys and insignia of the university. The Reformed ministers were ordered to leave Marburg within two days, or their families Avould be put out of their houses into the streets. The Lutheran religion was re-mtroduced. Thus Marburg was the second Reformed university io fall, as Heidelberg had done before it. All Lutherdom rejoiced at the fall of another Reformed university. Landgrave Maurice did the best he could for the Reformed. He had started a Knights' School at Cassel some years before, by which he hoped to refine the rough manners of the German nobility, among many of whom bull-baiting and other vices were prevalent. He founded this school to divert their minds to higher things, as the arts and sciences and polite manners. This school at LANDGRAVE MAURICE's ABDICATION. 97 Cassel Maurice now turned into a university to take tlie place of Marburg. However he did not live to carry this out, but his son fulfilled his wishes, and opened it as a university in 1633, with Crocius as rector. It remained at Cassel till the close of the war. After the loss of Upper Hesse, it looked as if Maurice w^ould lose Lower Hesse too. For Landgrave Lewis had taken possession of parts of it, as Smalcald and Katzeln- bogan, as pledges for the payment of the seventeen mil- lions gulden. The Knights of Hesse, one of the influen- tial orders in the Hessian diets, became disaffected to Maurice. The Lutherans in the provinces of Smalcald joined hands with the Lutherans of Upper Hesse against him. To make his position still more difficult, family difficulties arose between the children of his first and of his second marriage. Maurice made a desperate attempt to stop this tide of disintegration by joining the Confer- ence of the Saxon states, led by the King of Denmark. But the defeat of the King of Denmark made him lose all hope. His affairs were coming to a crisis. The Emperor, seeing his increasing weakness, began to press him the more. He demanded that Maurice allow Aus- trian garrisons in his forts as Cassel, and finally demanded that Maurice should abdicate. Maurice saw no way of averting the impending storm, but to abdicate. This he did publicly, March 17, 1627, in the golden saloon of his castle at Cassel. It was an act of patriotism and self- 98 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. denial to save his country. He retired to Eschwege. But, though he retired, he still watched the course of affairs with great interest. He, however, spent most of his time in the study of alchemy, poetry, as of Dante and Petrarch, and also of the political works of Macchiaveli. He was true to his name, the Learned. He died May 16, 1632, having lived long enough to see the coming of the Swedes, at which he greatly rejoiced. CHAPTER IV.— SECTION II. LANDGRAVE WILLIAM V. Rarely did a Prince enter npon the control of his land under more adverse circumstances than Landgrave William V. A large part of his territory was gone. The prestige and influence of his line of princes was lost by the forced abdication of his father. He was threatened by financial bankruptcy and surrounded by enemies ready to pounce upon him. Would he be able to lead Hesse-Cassel out of the labyrinth of woes in which she was lost ? He decided that the best way to begin to unravel the tangled knot of political affairs, was to come to some understanding with the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, even if he had to make some concessions to him. He therefore made a treaty with him, giving him Upper Hesse forever, and giving Smalcald and Katzelnbogan as pledges for the payment of the seven- teen million gulden. Landgrave Maurice protested against this agreement, but the Emperor ratified it, January 22, 1628. As a result, the Reformed ministers were driven out of the districts of Smalcald and Katzelnbogan, and their places were taken by Lutheran ministers. Land- grave William then went to Prague to personally inter- cede with the Emperor, that he would order his troops 100 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. to cease quartering on his laud, for they had already cost him seventy tons of gold. By a curious coincidence he happened to arrive at Prague just at the time when the Emperor dedicated a church in memory of his victory of White Mountain in 1620. As William crossed the bridge over the Moldau, he could see the bleached heads and hands of Frederick's nobles hanging there as a warning to all heretics and traitors. The Emperor tried to convert him to Rome, as he already had done Count of Hadamar. But William was of firmer stuff. He became disgusted with the superstitions, and drinking, and gambling among the nobles there, and after a six weeks' stay, he left Prague, without having gained anything from the Emperor for his land. When the Edict of Restitution was issued, the Catholics took from the Reformed the fine abbey of Hers- feld, which had been a great Reformed school. William was now very much in the same condition as his father had been. Much of his land was in the hands of his enemies. He had made concessions to his enemies and made an agreement with Darmstadt, hoping that then the hostile armies would be taken out of his land. But they remained there very much as before. Perplexed in every way, he began to think of abdicating too, as his father had done. His councillors, however, begged him not to do so. Just at this critical time Gustavus Adolphus appeared on the scene. William turned to the Swedes for aid. He was the first German Prince to join the Swedes. Sev- WILLIAM JOINS GUSTAVUS. 101 eral reasons prompted him to do this. He was a cousin of Gustavus. Like his ancestor Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous, who defended the liberties of Germany a century before, he felt he must now defend them against the Emperor's unjust acts. But his greatest reason was the injustice of the Emperor to him. He saw no hope from the Emperor. He saw hope through the Swedes. The Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt warned him against joining the Swedes, saying that he would lose his terri- tory if he did. William probably felt there was not much to lose just then, because all was then so nearly lost. He brought an army of 10,000 soldiers into Gustavus' army, which did good service for the Swedes. Indeed, Land- grave William became one of Gustavus' prominent gen- erals, ranking next to the distinguished Duke Bernard of Weimar. He thus became the greatest of the Reformed nobles who fought against the Emperor. When Tilly saw that William had gone over to the Swedes, he started to march on Cassel. But just then the sudden victories of Gustavus called him away, and Cassel was not attacked. The Reformed people of Hesse greatly rejoiced at Gus- tavus' coming. After Gustavus' victory at Leipsic, Neu- berger, the chaplain of the Landgrave, preached a sermon of thanksgiving. William now became strong enough to drive out of his land the imperial forces that had so long oppressed the Werra district. He was thus able to re-in- troduce the Reformed faith into Hersfeld. He also 102 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. marched against Upper Hesse and re-captnred Marburg. Then he marched with Gustavus Adolphus in his victori- ous campaigns to southern Germany, and was with him when he fell at Lutzen. He won military honors at Furth. At this time he also gained a very valuable officer for his army, whose name was Peter Holzapple, or Melander. He was destined to become the great general of the Hessian armies, and the greatest Reformed general of the war. The defeat of the Swedes at IS'ordlingen turned tlie tide of war against William again. The imperial forces again advanced into his territory. Wherever they came, the Reformed ministers had to flee. The next year came the fatal peace of Prague, which, however, brought no peace for him, for the cruel Croats fearfully ravaged a part of his land. He was repeatedly urged by his friends to accept this peace of Prague, as almost all the German nobles had done. Had he done so, it is not probable that religious liberty would have been accepted by Germany, or that the Reformed Church would ever have been offici- ally recognized in Germany. For had he accepted the peace, that would probably have closed the war without settling these questions which were afterwards settled by the peace of Westphalia. These great principles, there- fore, depended on what he would do. For there were only two German princes who kept up the war after 1635. They were William and Duke Bernard of Weimar. But THE BLOCKADE OF HANAU. 103 William declared he would not accept the peace with the Emperor until two things were done — (1) The territory of Upper Hesse, Smalcald and Katzelnbogan, which had been unjustly taken away, must be returned ; and (2) the Reformed faith must be guaranteed in his dominions. The peace of Prague proposed to close the war without bring- ing about these two things. So William kept up the war for the sake of Protestantism, and the Reformed faith and religious liberty. He formed a league with the Swedes and the French, the latter giving him 12,000 crowns and elevating him to the rank of a field marshal in the army. He at once signalized himself by his relief of Hanau, one of the few victories gained by the Swedes in the years immediately after their defeat at JSTordlingen. The town of Hanau had been a Reformed stronghold. It had joined the Swedes, but its prince had accepted the Peace of Prague. Still the Count of Hanau could not deliver it to the Emperor, for it was held by a Swedish garrison under General Ramsey. But the posi- tion was a dangerous one, for it was the only Swedish garrison in that part of Germany. The Emperor sent an army to besiege it, and the famous " blockade of Hanau " w^as begun. General Lamboi shut the town up November, 1635. He placed gallows in front of the fort to frighten the inhabitants with the danger of such a death. On December 14 the Reformed had a day of prayer, to ask the Lord to deliver them in their time of need. They 104 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. also had another day of prayer, January 31, 1636. On February 1 , the members of the Reformed church took the communion. For they were in great need. Famine was threatening the city. The enemy spread wild alarms by shooting fire balls into the city, so as to set the build- ings on fire. They shot 139 of them into the town. They also shot Avhat was called ^^ beggar's sacks," which con- tained silk, mixed with powder, iron and balls. These set fire to whatever they struck. A ball struck the French Reformed church, rebounded at a pillar and then wxnt through four seats (the marks of it are still shown). The plague now broke out in the city. But Lamboi's troops were also suffering from hunger. They had so badly devastated the country around the city that nothing was left even for them to eat. In May, 1636, Lamboi more closely invested the city than before, but Ramsey defended it with great ability and bravery. It was at this critical moment that Landgrave William came to its aid. He suddenly appeared June 13, 1636, with 6,000 men and attacked the Austrians. The Austrians, taken by surprise, were hemmed in between William's army and the defenders of the town. William's army advanced and soon forced them away on one side and formed a union with the gar- rison through the [N^uremberg gate. This lifted the blockade of seven months. The Swedish General Leslie made an entrance through that gate into the city. Great was the joy of the Reformed inhabitants. They looked OPPRESSIONS OF HESSE. 105 upon his coming as an answer to their prayers. As soon as the battle was over, William went to the Reformed church in the old city of Hanau to return thanks to the Lord for the victory, and he scattered 1,000 ricksthalers to the poor of the three congregations. He then drove the enemy away from the right bank of the Main river. He left on June 16, leaving General Eamsey with 2,000 men as a garrison.* The capture of Hanau made a deep impression on Germany. The Protestants rejoiced and built high hopes on it that it had turned the tide of war, which had been going against the Swedes ever since the battle of Nord- lingen. It, however, alarmed the imperial forces, and they began massing against Hesse-Cassel to crush William. They came again into Hesse-Cassel. The imperial general Gotz fearfully ravaged the land. One hundred ministers were either maltreated or had to pay a ransom for their release. At Hersfeld, Piscator, the rector of the Reformed gymnasium, had to save his life from the Croats by flight, and the gymnasium was closed for eighteen years. At Treysa the Reformed minister died, wounded with seven wounds. In February, Gallas, the imperial general, "-■• (See Book I., Chapter III., Section II,) For this relief of Hanau the Reformed observ^ed June 22, 1636, as a day of prayer, and continued it yearly afterwards. By 1645 they kept June 13, as that day of prayer and thanks- giving. This day was observed by them for more than a century. The Hanau people never forgot the kindness of the Hessians in coming to their aid. An ample return was made to the Hessians, when in 1736 the province of Hanau fell to Hesse-Cassel. 106 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. ravaged the Werra and Fulda districts, burned two hun- dred villages, and put one-third of the population to the sword. William's position w^as in the meanwhile becom- ing more and more desperate. The Emperor took advan- tage of his extremity to do to him as he had done to Frederick of the Palatinate. He, by an order, November 21, 1636, deposed William and put him under the ban of the empire. He appointed William's rival, the Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, the administrator of Hesse-Cassel. The latter had now gotten what he had been seeking a long time, namely, the privilege of taking possession of William's land. Thus the Emperor tried to destroy another Reformed land, and deposed the second Reformed Prince of the empire. The Hessians, however, loved their ruler. And the northern part, especially the forts, were still in possession of William's forces. It became evident, however, that William must seek some other land for an asylum, until the Swedes and French could give him the aid required to redeem his losses. Too much was depend- ing on his solitary life to allow him to be in any danger of being captured by the Emperor. So they decided that he must seek an asylum in East Friesland. Here, if driven out of Germany, he could go either to Holland or to Sweden. The Count of Friesland had been neutral dur- ing the war, and objected to William's coming, but when William appeared with his army of 11,000, and when a Dutch man-of-war appeared at the mouth of the Ems THE DEATH OF WILLIAM. 107 river, he submitted. But although William persisted in not surrendering to the Emperor, he was compelled to sur- render to a greater than the Emperor. For death, the king of terrors, laid hold of him at Leer in East Friesland, September 17, 1637. Rumor has it that he was secretly poisoned by the enemy, which is quite likely, as Duke Bernard of Weimar was poisoned some years afterward. For when the imperialists found they could not conquer their enemies fairly, they sometimes resorted to poison to get rid of them. (Even Gustavus himself is said to have been killed by an assassin in his own army.) William's death was very unfortunate. For with the returning tide of victory which soon afterwards came to the Hessians, it is altogether probable that with his military skill he would have gone southward through Germany in a magnificent campaign of victory, like a second Gustavus Adolphus. But he gained a higher victory, for his faith shone out before dying. He comforted himself with the 125th Psalm, " The rod of the wicked shall not rest on the lot of the righteous." They might try to take away his country, but they could not take away his faith, and he felt that as sure as there was a just God in heaven, his land would be freed from the unjust rod of Austria. CHAPTER ly.— SECTION III. THE VICTORY OF LANDGRAVINE AMALIE ELIZABETH. AVhen WiHiam died, it seemed as if Hesse-Cassel would be lost, and with her the rights of the Protestants and of the Reformed Church, of which she was ahnost the last bulwark. After Landgrave William's death only one German prince remained in rebellion against the Empe- ror, Duke Bernard of Weimar. It looked as if the Pro- testant cause were almost lost. But mcm\s extremity is umnan's opportunity. There rose up a Reformed Joan of Arc, Landgravine Amalie Elizabeth, William's wife, to lead the German Protestants and the Reformed back to victory. She did not do it, as did the French Joan of Arc, by appearing on the battlefield, but by the shrewd- ness of her diplomacy. She has been compared to the ancient prophetess of Israel, and has been called the Reformed Deborah. She was the daughter of Countess Catharine Belgica of Hanau, and so was the great-grand- daughter of William the Silent. From him she inherited "his wisdom and his eagle eye." She was a great descendant from great ancestors. But great were the odds against her. She ascended the throne in the darkest davs of that most terrible war. If the situation was LANDGRAVINE AMALIE OF HESSE CASSEL. AMALIE ASSUMES CONTROL. 109 critical when her husband ascended the throne, it was more so when she ascended it. A large part of her land was in the hands of her enemy. The debt on the land was 590,000 thalers, and she and her family were in exile in East Friesland. To make her condition still more desperate, the Emperor declared that her husband^s will, which made his son his successor, was void, and gave the land to the administratorship of her enemy, the Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt. This usurpation thor- oughly aroused her. AVith the courage of a lioness she proceeded to battle for her son's rights. As regent for her son, she began warlike operations. Her husband had fortunately left her 15,000 excellently drilled soldiers. She appointed Melander as her commander. He had years before won laurels in the Swiss and Venetian ser- vice, had been a pupil in- war of Prince Maurice of Orange, and completed his military education under Gus- tavus Adolphus. He it was who brought discipline into the Hessian army, which enabled it to gain victories, as at Oldendorf (1633). The Emperor saw the value of Melander as a general, and had tried to bribe him over to his service. He offered him a county in Julich, and an annual pension of 10,000 thalers, and the position of general. But Melander was incorruptible and refused, saying he was a German and a Wester walder,* and that *■ Westerwald was a district in Nassau, and he meant that he was so intensely German, as to be a double German. Prince Maui'ice of Orange once said that a Westerwalder outwei2;hed two other Germans. 110 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. he would rather be a geoeral of the Hessian army, than one among the twenty-eight generals of the Emperor's army. The Emperor also tried hard to get Amalie to come to terms Avith him. He was so anxious that he asked the Elector of Mayence to get her to name her con- ditions. She replied that she would not make peace, till Hesse-Cassel was given back her territory, and the Reformed, who had been ignored by the Peace of Prague, were given their rights. MeauAvhile the French labored hard to prevent her from coming to terms with the Emperor. Negotiations were thus kept up for two years. During that time she kept the Emperor in hopes, and at the same time wrung from the French subsidies of 150,- 000 gulden. Finally she refused the Emperor, partly because he would not agree to toleration of her Reformed religion. So in 1640 she began to move her forces for- ward again into AVestphalia, supported on one side by the Swedes and on the other by the French. She contrived to have her little land placed on an equal footing with these great powers. But, although she thus pressed the war, a strong peace party appeared in Hesse-Cassel, led by Melander. He had lost faith in the Swedes and French, and believed that these foreigners were keeping up this war at the expense of Germany, in order to gain their own purposes. He held that Germany must save herself, and that Hesse must break loose from these for- eigners. The result was, that he was compelled to retire MELANDER BECOMES COMMANDER. Ill from her service, after having led the Hessian army to glorious victories at Neustadt, Paderborn and Hameln. He retired from military service to Esteraii, and made Esthen his capital. In 1641, after he had become recon- ciled to the Emperor, the Emperor elevated him to the rank of a noble, and in 1642 made him field marshal. The Emperor promoted him to be commander of his forces in Westphalia in 1645. Now one of the most remarkable facts about the close of this war was the loss of first-class generals by the Emperor. One by one (Tilly, Wallenstein and others) they had either died or left his service. Gallas was a drunkard, and was nick- named ^^ the army corruptor.'^ On the other hand, the Swedes and French were bringing out new and first-class generals, as Turenne and Conde among the French, and Wrangel and Baner among the Swedes. As the Empe- ror's best generals were all gone, he was compelled, as a last resort, to appoint Melander his general. What a grim commentary of providence, that after the Emperor had been fighting the Calvinists for a quarter of a cen- tury, he should have to call a Calvinist to lead his forces. How significant are the reverses, yes the revenges of his- tory, that the Emperor had to call one of the sect, which he had tried so hard to destroy, to come and save him at the end of the war. We do not defend Melander for leading a Romish army against the Protestant cause. But no one can question the honesty of the man. He really 112 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. believed that Germany was a prey to foreigners, as the Swedes and the French, and he wanted to see the land delivered from them. Xor is there any question about his intense devotion to the Reformed faith. He used every eifort to re-introduce it in his little county, from which the Count of Hadamer had cast it out, and also at Vienna with the court. He soon began operations against the Hessians and the Swedes. He marched against Mar- burg, when, on December 29, 1647, a shot wounded him so severely that it was thought he would bleed to death. When after a long illness he was again able to take com- mand of the army, he found that the fortunes of the war were against him. He tried to introduce discipline into the army, as Gustavus had done, but the wild Austrian hordes would not obey, and the soldiers grumbled at it. Besides, the Romish officers did not forget that he was a Protestant. They had complained against his appoint- ment at first, and were lukewarm to him afterward. His colleague Gronsfeld would not agree Avith him. All these things made his career more hopeless now. The truth was that the fortunes of the war had passed from the battle-field to diplomacy. He was, therefore, compelled to retreat before the Swedish, French and Hessian armies. In this retreat his rear guard was attacked near Augs- burg. He hurried back to stop its flight, when he was fatally wounded by two balls in the breast. But he still liad the spirit of the hero, for he said to the officer Avho DEATH OF MELANDER. 113 came to help him, " Do not think of me ; I am dead. Hasten to get over the stream, if you would save the for- tunes of the Emperor. Forward ! forward !" He was carried to Augsburg, where he died. His Reformed chap- lain preached a funeral sermon based on 2 Chronicles 35 ; 23, comparing him with Joseph. His embalmed body was brought with military honors under a guard of 380 cavalry to Ratisbon, where it was to have been buried. But when the Lutherans found out that he was Reformed, they would not let him be buried in their church. It was finally taken to his little land of Esterau, where it was buried in the family vault. There is a statue of him over the grave, and another in a niche in the castle at Schaum- burg. One of the greatest men of the war, he rose from an humble birth to highest rank. He was so deeply attached to the Reformed faith that he wanted his son to become a Reformed minister and take charge of the Reformed church at Langenscheid. After his death his widow had the Reformed faith introduced into his laud. While the brave Melander was thus suffering defeat after defeat. Landgravine Amalie was gaining victories. Supported by the French and the Swedes, she became a con- trolling power at the end of the war. Although the ruler of only a small German state, she was the equal of France and Sweden in the peace negotiations. One of the Em- peror's friends had said : " It was a shame that so small a duchy should dictate terms to the Emperor." The Bava- 114 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. rian general Gronsfeld said : '' Amalie has gained immor- tal fame, for she has gained toleration for her Reformed religion which had been cast off by the Empire. She holds the balance of power in her hands.'' Victorious in war, by her great diplomatic skill she also gained victo- ries in the peace negotiations. She compelled Hesse Darmstadt to give back to her Upper Hesse, Smalcald and Katzelnbogen. She also received in addition half of the county of Schaumburg, containing in it the Lutheran Uni- versity of Rinteln. The Emperor granted her the exer- cise of her Reformed religion. The Romanists were com- pelled to give back the Abbey of Hersfeld to the Re- formed, and it afterwards became a great Reformed gym- nasium. At the close of the war she laid down the regency of her land, and her son, William VL, became Landgrave. She was greatly idolized by her people. On a visit to Heidelberg in 1651 she was greeted by the people as the " Reformed Deborah." She said she would rather lose everything than give up her Reformed reli- gion. The Danish ambassador bore testimony to her great love for the Reformed, for he called her an arch Calvinist. She died August 8, 1651. She greatly loved her Reformed Church, which Avas the constant recipient of her bounty. On her coins is the motto : "Against might and craft God is my rock." CHAPTER V. THE VACILLATIONS OF BRANDENBURG. The three great powers of Germany that adopted the Reformed faith were the Palatinate, Hesse-Cassel and Bran- denburg, the rest being small counties like Nassau or free cities like Bremen. After the fall of the Elector of the Palatinate, the Elector of Brandenburg naturally became the greatest Reformed prince of Germany. He should have stood forth as their great protector. But unfortu- nately, to make their condition still more pitiable, this prince, George William, was a mild, timid man. He was not the energetic, far-seeing man that the times demanded. He had not the decision of character of his father who left the Lutheran faith to become Reformed, or of his son who became the great protector of the Reformed. Still, we must not judge him too harshly, for there Avere certain circumstances that tended to make such a timid man more timid. The first was a religious one. While he was Reformed, his subjects were intensely Lutheran. Among the thous- ands of Lutherans in his province, there were only three small Reformed congregations in Brandenburg and 116 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. Prussia.* And not only were the Reformed congregations few and small, but the zeal and bigotry of the Lutherans was intense. So on account of the intense opposition of the Lutherans to the Reformed, the Elector had to be cau- tious. A second reason for his timidity was a geographical one. His country was composed of three provinces — Prussia in the east, Brandenburg west of it (Poland cut up Prussia into two divisions), and then in the western part of Germany the Rhine province. All of these were sepa- rated from each other by strips of territory. He was there- fore weak politically. Besides, Prussia, his eastern prov- ince, was intensely Lutheran. When his father died, a plot was formed to prevent him from reigning over Prussia because he was not a Lutheran. They hoped to make his younger brother the ruler. Strange to say, his mother who was an intense Lutheran, helped on the plot. His father heard of this. And so his father, before he died, had him crowned, so that there might be no trouble about the succession after his death. His father also sent the younger son to Sedan, to a Reformed court to be edu- cated, where he afterwards joined the Reformed Church. * The first was at Berlin in the cathedral where the Elector and his family worshipped. A second was at Frankford on the Oder, where he had his Reformed university, whose Reformed professors became the nucleus for another Reformed congregation. They worshipped in the aula of the univer- sity until the next Elector gave them a building in 1656. A third congrega- tion was at Konigsberg, but there they were not permitted to have a church in the town, only to have private services in the castle. This congregation did not have a regular pastor till 1636, when Agricola came. THE elector's TIMIDITY. 117 Thus the plot was defeated^ but it showed that the Elector could not count on much sympathy or aid from Prussia, especially as Poland was always ready to incite its inhabi- tants against him, so as to gain control of it if possible. A third reason w^as, that strange to say, he had a Catholic for his prime minister, Count Adam of Schwartz- enburg. This man, unknown to him, was secretly in the pay of the Emperor, and was the evil spirit of the Elector, thwarting his plans and frightening him. Fourthly, the circumstances of the war proved to be very ominous, and made him the more timid. The Emperor knew how to alarm such a timid prince. When King Frederick, his brother-in-law, was defeated at Prague, the Lutherans in his provinces were very jubilant over it. He was afraid of this fanaticism of his Lutheran subjects against Frederick. And he was also afraid of the anger of the Emperor, who might punish him for any favor show^n to Frederick, although he was his brother-in-law. He gave Frederick a temporary shelter in the fortress of Cus- trin. But it was a lonely place, and Frederick soon had to remove his family to Berlin. From there they were removed to Brunswick and finally to Holland. When Frederick was put under the ban. Elector George William refused to protect him, and Frederick had to leave. His timidity w^as increased when soon after the Emperor caused the abdication of Landgrave Maurice of Hesse-Cassel. He became afraid lest the Emperor would do something that 118 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. would compel him to retire from his throne. This fear was heightened when Wallenstein came with his wild hordes. The Emperor had deposed two of the neigh- boring princes, the Dukes of Mecklenburg (one of them Reformed) and had given their dominions to Wallenstein. This greatly alarmed George William. It was very evident that Wallenstein was after George William's electorate. For he quartered his troops in Brandenburg, where they performed all sorts of injustice and robbery. He hoped thus to incite the inhabitants to some sort of a revolt that might be construed into a rebellion against the Emperor, and then he could seize the Elector's terri- tory and have himself made Elector, just as he had been unjustly made Duke of Mecklenburg. The oppressions on the Elector were increased by the Edict of Restitution, which took away from him the Bishopric of Brandenburg and three other places. The year 1631 brought relief, as Gustavus Adolphus landed in Germany, but it brought no relief to the Re- formed in Brandenburg, but rather greater suffering. For the Swedes captured Frankford on the Oder, where the Reformed University Avas located. This city had been overrun with marching armies. First Wallenstein came, then Tilly. But strange to say, even Gustavus put the climax to its sufferings. Gustavus usually was merciful, but here was most unmerciful. Tilly had left a garrison of 5,000 in the city. The Swedes appeared before it with THE PLUNDERING OF FRANKFORD. 119 14,000 men, and on the 17th of April it fell. Most ter- rible was the result. The Swedes, who usually preserved strict discipline, did not do so here. For twelve long hours the town was given up to plunder. The Swedes said this plundering was allowed in return for the previous cruelty of the Austrians at New Brandenburg. There the imperial soldiers had surrounded a detachment of Swedes, and most cruelly cut them to pieces to a man. The Swedes had not forgotten this, and avenged themselves at Frank- ford. When an imperialist there cried for quarter, they replied, " New Brandenburg quarter,^' and slaughtered without mercy. In the plundering that took place many of the inhabitants were murdered and twenty houses burned. Of course the Reformed suffered in this plunder- ing. Professor Franck came very nearly losing his life five times. The other Reformed professor, Pelargus, lost his furniture, but his library was saved. "^ This siege was followed by the plague, which had so ravaged the town before, in 1625, that the university had been moved to Furstenwald. Then the imperial troops came again and captured the town, after which it was again captured by the Elector and the Swedish general Bauer. The terrors ••• There is a rumor that he lost his library. And when he appeared before the King of Sweden, asking that it be returned, the King told him to replace his disgraceful, corrupt compendium in its original state, and then he would restore it. This meant that Pelargus should replace his Reformed faith with the Lutheran doctrines, which he used to teach. But he did not go back to the Lutheran faith, as Gustavus suggested, and the next Elector gave his library to the university. 120 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. of war seem to have hung over the place until 1644, when the new Elector, Frederick William, protected it through his activity. The Elector of Brandenburg (although Gustavus was a near relative, and was his natural ally against the oppressions of the Emperor and Wallenstein), with his usual hesitation and timidity hesitated to join the Swedes, although his people were very anxious to do so. It was not till Gustavus' cannons were thundering at the gates of Berlin and threatening the city, that he made an alliance with him. The conference between the Lutherans and the Reformed theologians at Leipsic we will give in another chapter. Neither have we time to enter into the dreadful devasta- tions of Brandenburg, after the battle of Nordlingen. Brandenburg suffered very much like the other lands. Berlin only escaped by giving large bounties to the theaten- ing armies. Already in 1637 there were in Berlin 168 empty houses, and many of those inhabited had only widows and orphans. The Elector accepted the Peace of Prague, but as most of his subjects were Lutherans, its omission of the Reformed did not aifect his land very much, for he was strong enough to protect the few Re- formed there. George William died in 1640. And yet in spite of his vacillations, there are two things for which he must receive credit. The first was his adherence to religious liberty. ELECTOR GEORGE WILLIAM. 121 For in his alliance with the Swedes he insisted that relig- ious liberty should prevail throughout Germany. '' This/^ says Gindely, the great historian ofthe war/ "gave George William a solitary place among the Princes of Europe.'^ But in this he was only following his father, who in 1614 declared religious liberty for his land. This was sixty years before the Pilgrims landed in New England. Long before the Puritans had learned religious liberty (for they drove out Roger Williams, and did not cease persecuting the Quakers till long after this), he emphasized religious freedom. The Elector thus showed that he comprehended that one of the great issues at stake in the war was free- dom of conscience. The other act for which he is to be com- mended, is the gift to the Reformed Church of the cathe- dral at Berlin to be Reformed forever. This church was the church of the ruling line of Piinces. It was therefore of the same faith as the Prince. George William, fearing lest some of his descendants might turn to some other religion, gave it forever to the Reformed. This was the more important, for it was the only Reformed place of worship in Berlin, and if it were taken from the Reformed, they Avould have no place in which to worship. The deed declares that if any of his successors went over to another faith, the church should pass into the hands of the presby- terium of the Reformed congregation. It orders that it shall have none but Reformed ministers and use none but Reformed orders of worship. This guaranteed the future 9 122 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. existence of the Reformed iu Berlin, and as tins was the leading city in Brandenburg, it guaranteed their existence in that province.* The new Elector, Frederick William, was a very differ- ent man from his father, as decided as his father was timid. He was aggressive in his policy, and soon made the Em- peror, already weakened by the costs of the long w^ar, begin to feel his power. The Elector gradually separated from the Emperor, whom his father had joined in the Peace of Prague, by becoming neutral. And when the imperial army began oppressing his land, he beheaded a few of the offenders, and after that they made no more attempts at oppressing him. When he ascended the throne, he found that his father had not really ruled, but that his prime minister. Count Adam Schwarzenburg, ruled in the Mark Brandenburg, and the Dutch and Spaniards in Westphalia. He soon showed his ability by bringing order out of chaos, and gaining the control of those prov- inces for himself. In the peace negotiations v/hich closed the war, he became very active. Here he especially showed his love for the Reformed faith. (He was a pious * How sadly this gift and last will of George William have been perverted. The present cathedral is no more like a Reformed church than night is like day. Its service of responses, its altar, its crosses and boy choir are far removed from the simplicity of the Reformed service, and smack of the High Church Anglicanism, which the later Kings of Prussia have aped. Besides, none of its pastors at present are Reformed, and there has not been for years a Reformed minister among its pastors. All this came about through the union of the Reformed and Lutherans in 1817, which aimed to swallow up the Re- formed in it. THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 123 PriDce. He loved prayer and had an abiding hope in God. His motto was Psalm 143, " Lord, cause me to know the way wherein I should walk.") He showed his special love for the Reformed by insist- ing in the peace negotiations that they should be recog- nized and named in that peace. He instructed his ambas- sador in the negotiations to demand for the Reformed the same rights and concessipus as were made to the other religions. The Catholics did not oppose this, only saying it should be granted, if the Reformed would remain quiet, which the Reformed considered a quite unnecessary remark, as they had been quiet. The Lutherans of Germany, how- ever, objected, especially the Landgrave of Hesse Darm- stadt, and Wellern, the court preacher of Saxony. Indeed, if the Elector of Brandenburg had not been so firm, and urged the matter with unabated zeal and industry, it would not have been brought to pass. The Reformed Church would have lost its rights, if this noble prince had not arisen from her bosom to insist on them. He instructed his envoys very determinedly, and in it he was supported by the envoys of Holland and Hesse-Cassel, and also by Sweden, which claimed tliat the condition of Germany should be the same at the close of the war as before its beginning. He sent this instruction to his ambassador, February 22, 1648, that he was not disposed to have the name among his large Lutheran population of peddling the Reformed religion as if it were a new faith, so that he 124 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. would have to beg for it an existence, because it was not recognized by law. It was suggested that a special clause be put into the treaty, having reference to the Reformed. This he opposed, for he demanded that they must be men- tioned on an equality with the Lutherans and Catholics. They were to be mentioned wherever their rights were touched, and mentioned not as Evangelicals, but as Re- formed. One of his nobles openly declared that he would have nothing to do with the affairs of the Protestant cause there, if this were not granted. All this produced a great impression on the deliberations of the Peace. And the fear of friction from this cause finally led all, who were so weary of the war, to make concessions, so as to get a treaty formulated. So finally the seventh article of the Peace gives to the Reformed the same rights as to the Lutherans. Saxony protested against this, but it was ineffectual, as was the effort made by the citizens of Dantzic in appealing to the Swedish Queen against it. To them Count Brahe replied : " Those who had part in the war must have part in the peace.'' It has been said by those favorable to the Union of the Churches in Germany, that the Reformed were recognized in this Peace, not as Reformed, but as adherents of the Augsburg Confession. " This,'' says Eb- rard, " is not true. In the later recensions of the Peace, the phrase, ' adherents of the Augsburg Confession,' appears thirteen times, while the name Reformed appears thirty- five times, and Evangelical (including both Churches) ELECTRESS JULIAXE. 125 seventy times/^ In the seventh article the phrase is, ^' They who are called Reformed." The Reformed were therefore recognized by German law and given their rights. For this, great honor is due to the great Elector, although it must not be forgotten that this was the issue, for which the Landgravine Amalie of Hesse-Cassel was fighting all along. What Hesse-Cassel gained by war, the Elector gained by diplomacy. These two together kept up the agitation, until the times were ripe to embody it in the treaty, and until it was evident that no peace could ])e had without recognizing so large and influential a Church as the Reformed. We cannot close this sketch of Brandenburg without a reference to the Electress Juliane of the Palatinate, the mother of Frederick Y. She was a dauo;hter of Prince William of Orange, and inherited much of his ability as a statesman. When Frederick was elected to the throne of Bohemia, she, with a statesman's eyes, saw the danger before him. She therefore opposed his acceptance. This led to her retirement from that court, and a coolness sprang up between the Electress Elizabeth, who wanted Frederick to accept, and herself. Her fears came only too true. Frederick was defeated and the Spaniards came into the Palatinate. Before them she was compelled to flee, and she went to Brandenburg, where the Elector George William, who was married to her daughter, gave her an asylum at Koenigsberg. Here, at the northeast corner of Germany, far removed from the war as it was possible in 126 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. that land, she quietly spent the years of the war, viewing its horrors from a distance. She, however, greatly aided in the formation of a Reformed church in that Lutheran city of Koenigsberg, for she had Reformed service at the castle for her court, a large number of whom had come with her from the Palatinate and Avere Reformed. She showed the nobleness of her disposition, for when her daughter- in-law was fleeing from Bohemia, she forgot her previous differences with her, and most kindly endeavored to aid her in her distress. The babe which Electress Elizabeth bore at Custrin, Jujiane had brought to Koenigsberg, where she reared him. Says Benger, the biographer of Elizabeth, ^' It was a trait of generosity that Jaliane never became estranged from Elizabeth, however opposed they may have been in opinions. There was in each of these Princesses no common share of firmness and dignity, and if the younger might be personified Hope, the older was no less characterized by Resignation." When her son Fred- erick died, she beautifully comforted Elizabeth, although she herself was deeply moved. She died just before the close of the war, in 1644, sending her salutation to Eliza- beth, " Give my farcAvell to the Queen of Bohemia. Tell her that in my last moments I give her my solemn bene- diction.'^ She then freely conversed with her Reformed pastor about her Christian faith and declared her eagerness for heaven. " She combined the sagacity of a stateswoman with the sympathies of a woman and the magnanimity of a heroine.'' CHAPTER VI. SUMMARY AND RESULTS OF THE WAR. At last peace came like an angel song from heaven to a generation, many of whom had grown up during the war and who had never before known what the blessings of peace were. The bells were rung, Te Deums were sung, Thanksgiving sermons were preached. The people went wild with the thought that the bitter and seemingly end- less war was now at last over. And as the blessings of peace began to dawn upon them, they almost felt as if heaven had come down to earth after the pandemonium of such a war. What then was the effect of the war on the Reformed Church? It may be said to have been both disastrous and beneficial. The war was a fearfully disastrous one to Germany, It is said that two-thirds of the population perished in the war. Her population fell from seventeen millions to four millions. " Germany was a great grave, a grave of good manners and morality, of justice and religion, science and art.^' But of all the lands in Germany, the Reformed districts suffered most. Hesse-Cassel lost one-fourth of her population. The Palatinate suffered the worst. Only one-fiftieth of the population is said to have remained. 128 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. The number of the Reformed was, therefore, at the end of the war very much less than at its beginning. And she lost not merely in population, but also in the number of her princes. Elector Frederick of the Palatinate was deposed, then Duke John Albert of Mecklenburg, then Landgrave William of Hesse-Cassel, beside some lesser princes, as the Count of Solms Braunfels. Of course these princes were reinstated by the close of the war, except the Duke of Mecklenburg, who had a Lutheran successor. But these Reformed princes lost prestige and influence, which it took years to regain. The Reformed Church also suffered at her centres, the universities. A peculiar fatality struck her seats of learning. They seemed to be the targets of the war. One after another »they were lost or crippled. The Romish powers seemed determined to cripple Calvinism. Heidelberg was taken three times. Marburg was captured four times. Her- born suffered worse than sieges, as the enemy quartered their troops year after year near there. She was plun- dered and burnt three or four times, as well as repeatedly pillaged. Frankford on the Oder did not escape. She w^as captured four times. As these centres of learning were lost or weakened, of course the Reformed Church was weakened, for to them she looked for her supply of ministers. In the midst of all these losses she found that even those who she supposed were her friends, turned out to GUSTAVUS' TREATMENT OF THE REFORMED. 129 be indifferent or hostile. This was true especially of Gus- tavus Adolphus. His treatment of the Reformed has been a painful surprise. One would have supposed that as they were his allies, he would have treated them with great favor. But certain facts point the other way. His treatment of the Reformed King Frederick of the Palati- nate shows this. He seems to have been very careful not to enlarge the Reformed Church, but rather to hinder her, especially where the Lutherans could gain an advantage. He showed this policy on different occasions. First he plun- dered Frankford on the Oder,* the very first Reformed cen- tre he touched, and said that God punished them for their stiffneckedness in upholding false doctrines. This act made the Reformed lose hope in him. Professor Pelar- gus, as he told the story of his sufferings during the plundering at Frankford to the Reformed of Bremen, made them feel that Gustavus was as great an enemy to the Reformed, as the Emperor had been. Gustavus showed his feeling toward the Reformed very clearly at Frankford on the Main. When the Reformed consrre- gation, which had been compelled by the Lutherans to build their church outside of the city walls, came to him and asked to be allowed to use a church in the city, he replied, '^ that he would rather have all his soldiers' spears and swords stuck into their hearts, than in any way to help the Calvinistic religion to grow through his victorious arms." His policy was to make use of the * Hering, History of Union Efforts, Vol. I., page 330, note. 130 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. It Eeformed, but not to aid them. The Swedes^ both before and after the death of Gustavus, tried to aid the Luther- ans at the expense of the Reformed. Thus they greatly strengthened Lutheranism in the Palatinate. Wherever a town had a Swedish garrison^ there they would place a Lutheran minister, who would gather the nucleus of a Lutheran congregation. The law declared, that where the Lutherans had the majority, there they should get the church building. This law was interpreted very liberally by the Swedes to favor the Lutherans, as at Oppenheim, Mosbach and Kreuznach, where the Reformed were in the majority. Indeed many of the Lutheran churches in the Palatinate owed their origin to the Swedes. Thus the Reformed were without a friend anywhere, the one solitary exception to this being Holland, when she cap- tured Wesel. Even the Swedes took advantage of them. The Reformed Church lost much — population, rulers, land, ministers, church property and thousands of church mem- bers killed in battle or dead through the woes of the war. Her sufferings were beyond description, as her losses Avere beyond computation. And yet, fearful as were her losses, the gain was commensurate with the loss.. Great principles are worthy of great sacrifices. Sometimes it costs a war, with the loss of many lives and much money, in order to establish a great moral principle, yet the value of the principle outweighs the loss in every way. This was true of the Thirty Years' War. Few wars had such THE GAINS TO THE REFORMED. 131 important principles at stake. The principle of religious liberty established by the war was alone worth all the war cost, and much more. And the Keformed were amply repaid for tlieir losses by gaining the recognition of their Reformed faith as a legal religion. Whereas she had existed before by sufferance, now she existed by law with equal rights with the other faiths, and mentioned by name in the treaty. Henceforth the Reformed religion was one of the established religions of Germany. The right of using the Heidelberg Catechism was granted to the Palatinate, and it came into common use in Hesse- Cassel. These grand results were worth the great sacrifices the Reformed had made. The Reformed Church had lost much, she now gained much. She gained rights, which would never be taken away from her. And, as a result of these new privileges, she took a new start after the war, and for half a century prospered very greatly. We will get a better idea of her condition at the close of the war, by taking up the various Reformed lands separately. The Palatinate. Elector Charles Lewis came back to his land in 1649. He had left it a boy and came back to it a middle-aged man.* He came to the Palatinate from England, by way * By a curious coincidence his uncle, King Charles I. of England, lost his crown just as Charles Lewis ascended his throne. Was this a revenge of his- tory as well as a coincidence, because his father. King James I. of England, had so meanly refused to support his son-in-law, Frederick of the Palatinate? And now James' son loses his throne when Frederick's son gets his Electorate. 132 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. of Hesse-Cassel. He wanted to visit the Landgravine Amalie, who had so nobly supported his rights, and he chose her daughter as his wife. He entered Heidelberg, October 7, 1649. But how different it was from the land he had left. The paradise had become a desert. The streets were covered with weeds, the fields with thorns. A few huts stood where once was the dwelling place of the rich. His beautiful capital was in ruins. His palace with its splendid gardens, statues and water works that had rivalled Versailles, and had been the wonder of Europe, Avas in such a sad condition that he could not find a suitable place in it to live. He at once took measures to restore his land to prosperity, and was called the Kestorer of the Palatinate, for which his economy and shrewdness aided him. He offered freedom from taxes for 20 years to those who would repair their property. He invited those who had emigrated to return. He also secured colonists from Holland, Switzerland, France and England. As a result his fertile land began to bloom again, so that Mar- shal Grammont, who had marched over it in 1646, when he again visited it twelve years after, was astonished at its progress and prosperity. The Church also began to flourish again like the land. Like Elector Frederick III., this Elector took the position that he was the spiritual father of his people, and he must see that their religious wants were supplied. AYhile in England he had become opposed to the high church pomp of the Anglican Church. RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REFORMED. 133 Indeed, as Benger says, " be had actually assumed his place in the convocation of divines sitting at Westminster, so as to recommend himself to the Puritans. But he was inclined to emphasize the practical aspects of religion rather than the doctrinal. Of the 347 ministers in the Palatinate at the beginning of the war, only one-tenth remained, and these mainly in towns garrisoned by the Swedes. Fifty-four others were still alive in foreijrn coun- tries, and of them the greater part returned. The Reformed consistory was re-established in 1649, and the old Palat- inate Church Order was re-published, an old copy of it having been found in the archives at Frankenthal. But owing to the poverty of the court and of the people, many of the parishes could not be supplied with pastors. Col- lections were taken up in foreign lands for the poor Pala- tines. Thus the Canton of Berne gave six hundred ducats in 1651. The Reformed university was re-opened Novem- ber 1, 1652, with splendid services, but so great was the poverty of the government, that at first only one professor of theology was appointed, Tossanus. Afterward Hot- tinger of Zurich, and Spanheim from Holland, came as professors of theology. The former brought with him twenty Swiss students, so great was his popularity at home. The university soon flourished, and numbered one hundred and nineteen students. Fabricius was appointed professor of theology in 1660, and became the great leader of the Reformed of the Palatinate during the rest of the 134 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. centuiy. The Elector in his zeal to elevate the university even went so far as to invite the Dutch Pantheist, Spinoza, to become a professor in it. But Fabricius contrived that in the invitation sent to Spinoza, there should be a clause stating that while the greatest freedom of inquiry would be allowed to him, yet nothing that would unsettle Chris- tianity, would be permitted. Spinoza perhaps took the hint, and did not accept the invitation of the Elector. The visitation of the churches, an old Reformed custom, was revived in 1658 and district synods or classes were organized. Thus the Reformed Church was again thor- oughly organized, and began to flourish as before the war. Nassau. The most important event for the district of the Wet- terau was the elevation of Herborn to the rank of a univer- sity. Before she had been merely a high school, with powers granted by the Count of Dillenburg, but she had not received privileges from the Emperor. Although she had been in existence for sixty-eight years, yet she was only a high school. Now, however, through the media- tion of Melander and of Count John Maurice of Nassau Siegen, the Emperor, in return for the great sacrifices Nassau had made during the war, elevated her to a uni- versity in 1652. But there were a number of expenses incidental to this. The diploma cost 4,100 gulden. This, unfortunately, the Nassau counties were unable to raise, THE UNIVERSITY OF HERBORN. 135 nor were they able to pay the cost of the seal or the salary of the chancellor or secretary. With a great deal of diffi- culty half of the cost of the diploma was raised, and here the matter was rested for fifty years. The Emperor granted the diploma, but as they had not paid for it, it Avas placed in the archives of Mayence. In 1615 the senate of the high school asked the Evangelical Princes of of Nassau to redeem the diploma, the amount that remained to be raised being about 1450 gulden. But they were not able to raise it, nor was it raised till 1740. And when it was raised, by a curious perversity of fortune the diploma, which had been granted so long before, could not be found. And yet this high school, though not a university, did the work of a university, and was a centre of influence for the Reformed Church. Brandenburg. The most important event for this electorate was the founding of the Reformed University of Duisburg in the northern Rhine. This war finally settled the contro- versy between the Elector of Brandenburg and the Duke of Pfalz Neuburg for the districts of Julich, Cleve, Berg and Mark. Brandenburg received Cleve and Mark, and Pfalz Neuburg, Berg and Julich. The Elector of Branden- burg then determined to carry out a plan of the former Duke, namely, of founding a university. He was anxious to do this so as to supply the needs of the many Reformed 136 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. in his Rhenish provinces (there were 90,000 in 1670), and also that it might be a connter-poise to arrest the influence of the Romish University at Cologne. As the Duke of Julich, Cleve, Berg and Mark had gained the imperial privileges for his university as early as 1566, it was com- paratively easy to carry out this plan. The university was opened October 4, 1656, in the presence of Count John Maurice of Nassau Siegen and other nobles. The church of the Catharine cloister was given to them for recitation purposes. This university very soon revealed a free and progressive spirit. Thus it began the use of Ger- man in its class rooms instead of the Latin. From the beginning it welcomed the Cartesian philosophers, even when driven out of other universities, as Herborn. Its first rector was John Clauberg, a Cartesian and a Cocceian. Still the university was not very large — 92 in 1655, 61 in 1701. It was too near the Dutch universities, who drew away the students from the Northern Rhine. This uni- versity continued in existence until the beginning of this century, when it was closed to be re-opened afterward at Bonn. The Elector also founded a gymnasium at Hamm, the capital of the province of Mark, which for a while so greatly prospered that it rivalled Duisburg in the number of its students. But then it went down, until the Seventy Years' War closed it. The other UDiversity of Brandenburg, Frankford on the Oder, which had lost most of its professors and endow- THE HESSIAN CHURCH ORDER. 137 ments by the war, again began to prosper as the Elector increased its priveleges and income. Only one professor remained, Franke, but the Elector appointed Reichel, and after his death in 1653, Bekmann and George Bergius, a son of John Bergius, who had been a professor there before. But the university never became large, as there were few Reformed in Eastern Germany. It, however, greatly helped the Reformed Church in Eastern Europe by training many students for the neighboring Reformed Churches in Poland, Bohemia and Hungary. Here the Reformed Church was also more thoroughly organized. The university of Marburg was revived in 1653, with John Crocius as rector.* Landgrave William VI. thoroughly re-organized the Reformed Church gov- ernment. In doing this, however, he showed his union- istic tendencies. His Church Order departed from the simple Reformed cultus. He appointed a commission, April 28, 1655, of whom Superintendents Hutterodt and Neuberger and Professor Crocius were members. They found themselves unable to produce a Church Order based on the former one of 1574, and yet suitable to the unionistic tendencies of the Landgrave, so they intro- ■^'- The only Reformed church at Marburg had been the garrison church, but now the Landgrave gave the Dominican cloister to them as a university church. The famous church of St. Elizabeth at Marburg was also used some- times by the Reformed, the iUustrous Professor Kirchmeyer, surnamed the Greater, preaching there. 10 138 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. duced a thoroughly Reformed Church Order. But this did not suit the Landgrave. He appointed another com- mission, and called a General Synod, May 13, 1656, to adopt their Church Order. But the General Synod, to the vexation of the Landgrave, approved the work of the first commission in its Reformed position. The Land- grave was of course again annoyed by this decision. He then appointed a ncAV commission, consisting mainly of laymen, although Hudderodt and Crocius were on it. Their Church Order was hurriedly and secretly printed. When the first part of it appeared, the Reformed minis- terium of Cassel, on January 19, 1659, made a vigorous protest against it, declaring that it would Lutheranize the Reformed Church. But the Landgrave made it a law, in spite of these protests, July 12, 1657. This liturgy dif- fers in a number of respects from the Palatinate liturgy, which was in common use among the Reformed. It introduced the pericopes or Scripture lessons, which were never approved by any purely Reformed Church Order, and are not found in any other Reformed Church Order. Both Goebel* and Cunof call the Landgrave a Lutheran- izer, and the Church Order not properly Reformed. And yet this Church Order has been quoted by high churchmen in the Reformed Church as a really Reformed liturgy. It, however, ordered the introduction of the * History of the Rhenish Westphalian Church, Vol. II., page 516. I Reformed Princes, pages 52 and 53. DOCTRINAL POSITIOX OF THE REFORMED. 139 Heidelberg Catecliism into the upper classes of the schools, and thus gave the Heidelberg Catechism confes- sional authority. This fixed the doctrinal position of tlie Hessian Church as Reformed, while the liturgy inclined to make it unionistic. This was the first official recogni- tion of the Heidelberg Catechism, which had been grad- ually introduced into Lower Hesse. This Church Order settled the condition of Hesse-Cassel for a century. It is still in use in Hesse-Cassel. The Doctrinal Position of the Reformed Church. This may be stated in a word by saying that while the Princes were inclined toward union with the Lutherans, the theologians still clung to their Calvinistic faith. Of the Princes, the Elector of the Palatinate was strongly inclined to union. He was very liberal in his views of religious liberty, even giving a home in his land to Sab- batarians (who observe the seventh day instead of the first as Sunday). He built the Concordia church at Manheim, in which Lutherans, Reformed and Romanists could wor- ship together. He looked with hope on the Saumur school of Calvinism, that it would be the bond to join Lutherans and Reformed together. He had his theo- logians have two conferences with the Lutherans at Deinach, in 1656, between the Reformed Professor Hot- tinger and the Lutheran, AVeller ; the other at Frankford in 1658, between Hottinger and Gerlach. He attempted 140 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. to get an understanding between the Reformed and the Lutherans on the basis of the Wittenberg Concord. In all this the wife of Duke George of Montbeliard, a descendant of Coligny, supported him in trying to bring about a peace between the Lutheran Church of AYurtem- berg and the Reformed Church of the Palatinate. The Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, we have seen, was favorable to union between the Reformed and the Luth- erans. He and his court were doubtless influenced toward this by John Durv, the peacemaker of that age, who for many years found a home at Cassel, at the expense of the Landgravine. But while the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel was favorable to union, the Elector of Brandenburg held firmly to the Reformed faith, although he believed in mutual toleration. This is proved by his treatment of the case of Paul Gerhardt. This tendency toward union at times was also shown by the fact that three conferences were held on union, at Leipsic in 1631, at Cassel in 1661, and at Berlin in 1662. These conferences revealed the desire for union. But it was found when the theologians came together, that the times were not yet ripe for church union. On the other hand, while many of the Princes were inclined toward union with the Lutherans, the Reformed ministers still held to their Calvinistic position, and were . not inclined to give it up. Their very persecutions made them love the old faith the more. The influence of the THE REFORMED WERE CALYIXISTIC. 141 Synod of Dort was felt in Germany, although its canons were not officially adopted by the German churches. Higher Calvinism spread into those parts of Germany which had been inclined to low Calvinism, as Branden- burg and Bremen, and Hesse-Cassel. Let us look at the representative men of the Reformed Church. The most prominent Reformed theologians of that period reveal the position of the Church. Henry Alting, professor at Heidelberg at the beginning of the war, was a strong Cal- vinist. He was driven out by the war and became pro- fessor in Holland. Scultetus, also professor at the begin- ning of the war, was a high Calvinist. One of the strong- est thinkers of the Reformed church was Wendelin. He was born in the Palatinate and studied at Heidelberg. The days of his course in that university lay in the troublous time of Prince Casimir, when he was trying to re-introduce the Reformed faith into the Palatinate, after Elector Lewis had driven it out. In the midst of the theological controversies of that day he formed his doctrinal belief, and thus became a strong infralapsarian. He became professor at Zerbst in 1611, where he taught for forty-one years, until his death in 1652. Both of his works on theology reveal his strong Calvinistic position, as well as his scholastic method of arrangement, though he reveals great keenness of analysis, even inclined to dialec- tics. Rev. Prof. Krauth, the Lutheran professor of Phila- delphia, although a strong Lutheran, looked on Wendelin as one of the most acute of the Reformed theologians. 142 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. Another very prominent Reformed theologian of that day was John Crocius. He was born at Wittgenstein, July 28, 1590. His father, Paul Crocius, was the author of the Book of the Martyrs, which exerted as great an influence among the Germans as Fox's Book of Martyrs did among the English speaking people. John was a pre- cocious youth. At the early age of twenty-three he was made court preacher of Landgrave Maurice, and at twenty- four doctor of theology. At twenty-four he was loaned by his master to the Elector of Brandenburg to take the place of Scultetus in introducing the Reformed faith into Brandenburg., The Elector w^anted to try and retain him, and make him professor of theology at his university at Frankford on the Oder. But Landgrave Maurice refused to give him up, and after he had served the Elector for two years, his master recalled him and made him professor of theology at the University of Marburg, although only twenty-seven years old. He died at Marburg, July 1, 1659. That Crocius is Calvinistic is abundantly shown by Clans, his biographer, and by Munscher in his history of the Reformed Church of Hesse.* "•■• Claus shows that the Calvinistic position of Crocius is proved by the posi- tion of the Reformed at the conference at Leipsic, where the Reformed held to particular election, instead of universal atonement, even though Bergius, the other Reformed theologian there, had taught the latter doctrine for many years. Claus says (Life of Crocius, page 81), "The great head of his system, as of Calvin's, was the glory of God. He places first the doctrine of creation,, then of the fall, then redemption. He held that God called a certain number,^ which is neither larger nor smaller." THE REFOEMED POSITION. 143 This Calvinistic position of the Reformed was revealed at the conferences at Leipsic, Cassel and Berlin, where the Reformed held that predestination was a fundamental part of their system of doctrine. Heppe says of the Cassel Conference,* ^^ That this conference shows that the German peculiarity of the Hessian theology was now absorbed by predestinarian Calvinism." * Herzog Encyclopaedia, Vol. Ill, page 155. BOOK II. CHAPTER I. THE FRENCH REFUGEES. The Reformed Church of Germany received an impor- tant addition, when sixty thousand refugees from France emigrated to Germany after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685. They were important, not only for their number, but also for their influence. Many of them were nobles, most of them were artizans, or manufactu- rers. Their descendents now number over a million. Their coming strengthened the Reformed Church in various ways. It gave her some of their most prominent men on the continent, as ministers, generals and states- men. It strengthened the Reformed, where they were Aveak in numbers, as in Brandenburg. And it strength- ened their Calvinism, where it was inclined to be affected by the prevailing Lutheranism around it. The French churches have always been an important element in the Reformed Church of Germany, and, therefore, deserve special mention. Before, however, we speak of their immigration into Germany, it is proper that we should speak of him who was the master mind in their reception, FREDERICK WILLIAM, THE GREAT ELECTOR OF BRANDENBURG. THE GREAT ELECTOR. 145 Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg. He espe- cially deserves mention, because he appears in European history as the great protector of the Reformed. And with him we cannot help mentioning his first wife, the Electress Louisa Henrietta. SECTION I. FREDERICK WILLIAM, THE GREAT ELECTOR. Frederick William deserves to be called the Great Elector, for he had many characteristics of greatness. He was great as a general, for he held his ground against Russia, Austria, France and the German realm. He w^as great as a statesman, for by his wisdom he had increased his territories from 1,300 square miles with 800,000 population at the beginning of his reign, to 1,932 square miles, with a population at his death of 1,500,000. He was also great as a builder. He built new parts of Berlin, as the Dorothean and Werder districts, so that the city from 6,000 in 1640, became 17,000 in 1685. He was great in his pity, for he was the defender of the oppressed of every land, but especially of the. Reformed. And he capped all his greatness by his piety. His motto was : ^' Lord, cause me to know the way I should go." He was, therefore, great in every respect. Indeed, one euloo^ist considers him orreater even than Frederick the Great. For the latter found everything prepared for him by an economical father, so that he could become great ; 146 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. but Frederick William found everything against him at the beginning of his reign, as the Thirty Years' War had left the land bleeding at many pores. Yet he made Brandenburg a mighty military power, and thus prepared the way for his grandson, Frederick the Great, to gain his victories. The latter on one occasion, when he removed the cathedral in 1750, had the coffin of the Great Elector, who Avas buried there, opened. And tak- ing the withered hand, he covered it with kisses, and said to those around : '' Gentlemen, this man did a good work.'' He was the only ancestor worthy of such a descendent as Frederick the Great. For he it was who raised up Bran- denburg and laid the foundations, on which Frederick the Great could build. He was born February 16, 1620. He came very nearly being educated by the Romish prime minister of his father. Count Adam of Schwarzenburg. But fortun- ately his mother, a Princess of the Palatinate House, had not forgotten the Avoes of her brother Frederick from the Romanists, and she prevented it. Besides, the dangers of the war compelled his parents to send him out of the country to Holland when 14 years of age, where he was surrounded by Reformed influences. He went to school with his unfortunate cousins, the exiled princes of the Palatinate, and often visited his aunt, the Electress Eliza- beth. He was there brought in contact with the princes of Orange, those magnificent warriors and statesmen, and THE GREAT PROTECTOR. 147 thus by study and observation he was prepared to be the soldier he afterwards became. He showed nobility of character, for on one occasion, when others were tempting him into vile temptations there, he, like Joseph of old, fled from them suddenly to the camp of the prince of Orange, saying as he left them, '' I am debtor to my par- ents, my honor, my land.'' He was called to the throne of his land at the early age of 21. He at once grasped the sceptre with the grip of a leader. We have already seen hoAv his decision of character gained for the Reformed their rights at the Peace of Westphalia. He became their great protector in all lands, especially after the death of Cromwell, who had claimed the title of '' protector of the Reformed." When the Diike of Savoy persecuted the Waldenses, he interceded for them. When Count John of Anhalt Zerbst became Lutheran and tried to force his Reformed subjects to become Lutheran, the Great Elector interceded for them, but he only partly succeeded in hav- ing the Nicolai church at Zerbst retained for them. When the Romish Duke of Pfalz-lS^euburg began to oppress his Reformed subjects by taking away their churches, Fred- erick William made reprisals in his own land of Cleve. He also sent an army of 5000 into the Duke's territories^ until the Duke stopped his persecutions. When the Re- formed were persecuted in Hungary, he had an agent at Presburg to aid them, and when the Dutch Admiral De Ruyter rescued thirty Hungarian Reformed ministers 148 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF (GERMANY. from the galleys at Naples, he gladly furnished the money for their travelling expenses to a Protestant land. He was also deeply interested in the expedition of Prince William of Orange to England to take the throne, for he feared another religious war in Europe. So he sent 9000 Brandenburg troops, and also his best general, Marshall Schomberg, to aid William to gain the decisive battle of the Boyne. Thus, as one writer says, Frederick William appears in defence of the Reformed, as Frederick III. of the Palatinate had appeared for the Heidelberg Catechism in the previous century at the Diet of Augsburg. If such was his interest for the Reformed of other lands, we can expect that he showed the same interest for the Reformed of his own land. Although only three Reformed churches existed in his realm at the beginning of his reign, many more were organized before its close. His prime minis- ter, Von Schwerin, bought Alt Landsburg, three miles from Berlin, and introduced Dutch colonists into it, who founded, in 1620, a Reformed church, the first new Re- formed church in Brandenburg. As the new districts (the Dorothean and the Werder) of Berlin were built, he erected churches in them, at which was a Reformed pastor. He built the Reformed castle chapel at Potsdam in 1687. Hering, in his History of the Brandenburg Reformed Church, mentions twelve Reformed churches organized during his reign. In addition to these he prepared the way for the organization of many more, for he welcomed PIETY OF GREAT ELECTOR. 149 the French refugees, who founded many Reformed churches about the time or soon after his death. He was a most pious Prince and set a good example of piety for his people. Morning and evening he had service in his chamber. He attended the Lord's Supper regularly, and on all Reformed festival days he attended church in the morning, and in the afternoon listened to the explanation of a psalm. When he went into battle, he prepared him- self by prayer. And often publicly before the soldiers he had prayer in his carriage. At the Battle of Fehrbellin he called his retainers to him, saying, " I could not sleep, but I feel sure God will give us the victory.'^ And after the battle he wrote, that not to himself, but to God belonged the honor of the victory. As he was so careful to observe the private devotions, he also favored public services for his people. It is an interesting fact to the Reformed that the beautiful street in Berlin, " Under the Lindens,'' which was originally laid out by Frederick's second wife, Dorothea, a Reformed princess, w^as at first used for open air service for the Reformed. When the church in the Dorothean "district was being built, open air services were held there on pleasant afternoons under three great lindens, which marked the spot and which were the beginning of that beautiful street. When he was offered the crown of Poland in 1668, if he would renounce his faith and become a Romanist, he nobly replied, ^^And were it the Emperor's throne, I Avould cast it aside, if I had to purchase it by the loss of my religion." 150 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMAXY. Indeed^ his earnest zeal for the Reformed faith has been misinterpreted. He has been charged with bigotry, as in the famous case of Paul Gerhardt. This needs to be considered. For according to the legend, Paul Gerhardt was persecuted by Elector Frederick William, driven out of Brandenburg, and was in great need, when he was led to write the famous hymn, " Commit thou all thy griefs,'^ and yet his faith was rewarded by receiving just then an appointment from the Elector of Saxony to the abbacy of Lubben. This legend reflects on the great Elector, as if he were a bigot and a persecutor. But the legend is not true to facts. The opposite to the legend is true. Not Frederick William, but Paul Gerhardt, was the bigot. Paul Gerhardt was pastor of the St. Nicholas Lutheran church at Berlin in 1657, and became the most popular preacher in the city. It happened that the Lutherans often attacked the Reformed from their pulpits as heretics. The Elector determined that these scandalous polemics, which brought so much disgrace to the cause of religion, should be stopped, and that the gospel should be preached instead of polemics. He then, June 2, 1662, renewed the edict of his grandfather, Elector John Sigismund, made in 1614, which forbade all polemical attacks on the faith of others. He also forbade any theological students of his province from going to the University of Wittenberg, which was the place where the minds of the students were so prejudiced against the Reformed. This last decree caused POLEMICS ARE FORBIDDEN. 151 a tremendous sensation and much opposition, as most of the Lutheran students of his land went to Wittenbero:. He also ordered that all Lutheran theological students, when they were admitted to the ministry, must take a pledge that they would not attack the Reformed from the pulpit. This many of them said they could not do, for their creed, the Formula of Concord, condemned the Re- formed doctrine. It was therefore a matter of conscience to them that they should be true to their creed, and, like it, attack the Reformed. He held a conference on union in 1662, in w^hich Gerhardt refused to fraternize with the Reformed. As his efforts were not regarded by some of the ministry, and polemics against the Reformed continued, the Elector two years later (September 16, 1664) issued a sharper edict which threatened the offenders with dismissal from their positions, and demanded of every Lutheran minister his subscription to a document pledging them not to attack the Reformed under pain of dismissal. This edict caused a still greater disturbance throughout the land. In the Mark two hundred ministers signed it, but many delayed signing. Of the ministers in Berlin, Lilius and Reinhar refused to sign it. They were, therefore, removed in April, 1665. Lilius, however, retracted in February, 1666, and was again restored to his position. But Reinhard left the land. It now came to Gerhard t's turn. He was very much opposed to the edict. At the conference between the 152 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. Lutherans and Reformed in 1662, he had said, ^' I do not hold the Calvinists for Christians."* Gerhardt was called before the consistory, February 13, and given fourteen days to consider whether he would agree not to attack the Reformed. But before he left the consistory, he declared that he would not sign the pledge. He was therefore dis- missed, although his dismissal caused great sorrow. Sympathy for him was increased, because just then he lost a son, and his wife went into a decline. Meetings were held in the city in his interest, and petitions were sent to the Elector interceding for him. The trades of Berlin, the town council, and finally the states of Brandenburg, yes, even the Reformed ministers joined in these petitions. Personally the Elector had the highest regard for Gerhardt, and had already put one of his hymns into the Mark Re- formed hymn book. But the Elector felt that there was a principle at stake. He determined that there should be religious toleration. He had made up his mind that these denunciations of the Reformed by the Lutherans must stop, and the Reformed must be treated as breth- ren. Finally, perhaps through the intercession of his wife, tlie beautiful Electress Louisa Henrietta, who was a great friend of Paul Gerhardt, he gave way. Because Gerhardt had not been accustomed to publicly attacking the Reformed in his services, an exception would be made of him. The Elector, therefore, permitted him to resume * See "John Sigismund and Paul Gerhardt," by Wangeman, page 172. PAUL GERHARDT. 153 his office without subscribing to the edict, or pledging himself not to attack the Reformed. From all this we see that it was the Elector who was tolerant, and Gerhardt who was intolerant. It was the Elector who was acting mercifully (instead of persecuting), by making Gerhardt the exception to the edict. The legend is evidently wrong. This is the more evident, the farther Ave proceed with the true story. The Elector sent word to Gerhardt that he was reappointed to his old position as pastor of St. Nicolas church, but added that he relied on Gerhardt's well known moderation, so that without sub- scribing to the edict, he would still carry it out in spirit. But Gerhardt's conscience would not rest easy under such an implied subscription to the edict. He felt he had gone back somewhat on his creed, the Formula of Concord, which condemns the Reformed doctrine as heretical. So he w^as unhappy under it, and, therefore, Avrote to the magis- trates soon after, January 26, 1667, asking to be relieved of his position as pastor, because his conscience gave him no rest under the implied subscription to the edict. There is no question that Gerhardt was conscientious, but at the same time the Elector ought not to be blamed for Gerhardt's hyper-conscientiousness. Gerhardt was, there- fore, dismissed. He was not driven from his position, as the legend says, but resigned it of his own accord. And there is still another fact to show that the Elector was not cruel, but kind. For six months the Elector waited 11 154 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. without appointing a successor, hoping that Gerhardt would reconsider his withdrawal. Now in view of these facts the legend, that he was driven out of Berlin by the Elector, and ordered to leave within four hours, and that penniless and helpless he wrote his hymn, " Commit thou all thy griefs," is all false. For the Elector waited a year before Gerhardt was finally dismissed, and even then suffered six months more to elapse, hoping that he would reconsider the matter. Instead of haste, there was delay, and every opportunity was given to Gerhardt to return. No, it was the Elector who was broad-minded in his sympathies here, and who longed for the two denomi- nations to treat each other as brethren, while Gerhardt was narrow and bigoted, and refused to promise to treat the Reformed as brethren. Gerhardt was called to the abbacy of Lubben, September, 1668, where he afterwards died. The Elector ruled Brandenburg for forty-eight years. His second wife, after the death of Louisa Henrietta, was Princess Dorothea of Holstein who left the Lutheran faith to become Reformed. He named the Dorothean district after her. She planted the first lindep in that now famous street, ^' Under the Linden." That street is an illustra- tion of the great growtli from the Elector's small begin- ning, and is therefore a monument to his memory, and to the Reformed Princess who first started it. He died April 29, 1688, at Potsdam. He was a pious man. DEATH OF FREDERICK WILLIAM. 155 Whenever he went, into his campaigns, he took his New Testament and his Psalms with him. When he found any among his citizens careless about religion, he tried to influence him, saying : " It is a good thing for a man to be pious, but he must be also upright.'^ His death was a triumphant one. When his court preacher came into his room, he joyfully said, " I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course.'' When asked as to his hope, he replied : " Christ is mine and I am His." He died with, " I know that my Redeemer lives," on his lips. His motto at the battle of Warsaw, " With God," was fulfilled as he was taken to be with God. One of his last sentences was, ^' While I breathe, I hope and my hope is in Christ." CHAPTEE I.— SECTION II. ELECTRESS LOUISA HENRIETTA. More interesting even than the Great Elector, is his first wife, Louisa Henrietta. She too was greatly inter- ested in the French refugees, for she was the grand- daughter of Coligny. She is the saint and songstress of the German Reformed Church. What Miriam was among the Israelites, she was to the Reformed — the sweet singer of Israel. She was a Dutch Princess descended from the great families of Colignj and Orange. Her father. Count Frederick Henry of Orange-Nassau, was governor of the Netherlands from 1625 to 1647. Her mother was a Ger- man Princess, Countess Amalie of Solms. She was thus of noble blood, but made nobler by grace. She was born at the Hague, November 27, 1627. Both of her parents were of the Reformed faith. Her mother, a woman of unusual intelligence, piety and beauty, educated her with great care. Although French fashions were popular at the court, she did not think it beneath her to train her daughter in the mysteries of housekeeping. Louisa grew up tall, fair-haired and graceful. Her religious training she received from Rivet, a Reformed theologian. She loved her Bible, and it became her constant companion. MARRIAGE OF LOUISA HENRIETTA. 157 Many passages, especially from Isaiah, remained in her memory as the result of her early training. When she was about eighteen years of ao-e, Elector Frederick William of Brandenl^urg was busy in Western Germany watching the negotiations that closed the Thirty Years' War. He also began negotiations of love as well as of peace. As he had been educated in Holland, he knew Louisa when she was a girl, and had heard of her beauty as a young lady. This brave young Prince there- fore proposed to this beautiful Princess, and was accepted. Of course there were difficulties in the way, for when did the course of true love run smooth even to princes ? The Thirty Years' War had so impoverished his land, that he had to borrow three thousand thalers of his mother in order to get married. Louisa too was held back, because her father was in such poor health. But the wedding came off, December 7, 1646, with great splendor, as was becoming Princes of such high rank.* But the bride did not go to Germany immediately after the wedding on account of the ill health of her father. Faithfully she ministered to him until he died, about three months after the wed- ding. Then she accompanied her husband to Cleve, in Western Germany. Here her first child was born. The peace of Westphalia having closed the war, the Elector * The bride wore a costly dress of sih^er brocade, rich with Brabaut lace. A crown of pearls and brilliants adorned her head. The long train of her dress were carried by six ladies of noble birth. The elector was not less elegantly dressed. He wore pants and vest of white satin. The front of his veat was so full of diamonds, that one could hardly discover the color of the cloth. 158 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. started toward his capital, Berlin. It was a long, hard and sad journey. When they arrived at Wesel, their child died. The journey was made all the sadder because of the terrible devastations of the war. The roads were in a frightful condition, the fields were desolate, the people were poor and many of them starving. Their sufferings, added to her own sorrows, made the journey very sad. But her sorrows only drove her closer to her Lord. Sad hearts sing sweetest songs. At Tangermiinde she had a month of rest and quiet. Here she poured out her soul in that immortal German hymn, ^' Jesus, meine Zuver- sicht.'' It was the out-growth of her sorrows over the loss of her child, and revealed her beautiful hope in Christ. It is evidently based on the 46th Psalm : '^ God is our refuge (Zuversicht) and strength;" also on Job 19; 25, 27 : " I know that my Redeemer liveth,'' and on 1 Corin- thians, 15th chapter. The following is a translation (although it is difficult in translations to bring out the beauty of the original) : Jesus my Redeemer lives, And His life I soon shall see ; Bright the hope this promise gives ; Where He is, I too shall be. Shall I fear Him? Can the Head Rise and leave the members dead ? Close to Him my soul is bound, In the bonds of hope enclasped ; Faith's strong hand this hold hath found, And the Rock hath firmly grasped. Death shall ne'er my soul remove From the refuge in Thy love. " JESUS, MEINE ZUVERSICHT." 159 I shall see Him with these eyes, Him whom I shall surely know, Not another shall I rise ; With His love my heart shall glow ; Only there shall disappear Weakness in and round me here. Ye who suffer, sigh and moan, Fresh and glorious there shall reign ; Earthly here the seed is sown. Heavenly it shall rise again ; Natural here the death we die. Spiritual our life on high. Body, be thou of good cheer. In thy Savior's care rejoice ; Give not place to gloom and fear. Dead, thou yet shalt know His voice, When the final trump is heard. And the deaf, cold grave is stirred. Laugh to scorn, then death and hell, Fear no more the gloomy grave ; Caught into the air to dwell With the Lord who comes to save. We shall trample on our foes. Mortal weakness, fear and woes. Only see ye that your heart Rise betimes from earthly lust Would ye there with Him have part, Here obey your Lord and trust. Fix your hearts above the skies. Whither ye yourselves would rise. How grandly she rises over her sorrows in this hymn, and how sweetly she comforts others by it. She then traveled with her husband through Minden and Halber- stadt to Berlin, where, after a six months' journey, she 160 THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANY. arrived, April 10, 1650. Berlin had suffered severely through the war, and was then a city of only a few thous- and inhabitants. The Elector had begun to make improvements, and the castle was again fitted up. The side of it towards the river Spree, which had been used as a prison, and called 'Hhe green hat,'' he refitted into pleasant apartments for his wife. The park before the place, which through the war had become a wilderness, he again beautified by planting trees and flowers, even planting onions (then so fashionable with the Dutch) among the tulip and hyacinth beds. But the Electress was not fond of the gayety of court life. She preferred a quieter home, where she could meditate upon her God. It liappened one day, while out hunting, that she expressed herself delighted with an old hiinting castle of the thirteenth century, north of Berlin. Her kind husband, ever ready to satisfy her slightest wish, presented it to her, together with the neighboring