e, not even arms and
war, have succeeded in abolishing the use of the cup as well as the
bread in the sacrament. In fact the Church itself permitted it, although
the popes revoked it by a breach of the conditions on which it was
granted. In the other States, Hungary, Austria, Silesia, Styria,
Carinthia, Carniola, Bavaria and other parts of Germany, many desire
with ardor the same indulgence. If this concession is granted they may
be reunited to the Church, but if refused they will be driven into the
party of the Protestants. So many of the priests have been degraded by
their diocesans for administering the sacrament in both kinds, that the
country is almost deprived of priests. Hence children die or grow up to
maturity without baptism; and men and women, of all ages and of all
ranks, live like the brutes, in the grossest ignorance of God and of
religion."

In reference to the marriage of the clergy he wrote: "If a permission to
the clergy to marry can not be granted, may not married men of learning
and probity be ordained, according to the custom of the eastern church;
or married priests be tolerated for a time, provided they act according
to the Catholic and Christian faith? And it may be justly asked whether
such concessions would not be far preferable to tolerating, as has
unfortunately been done, fornication and concubinage? I can not avoid
adding, what is a common observation, that priests who live in
concubinage are guilty of greater sin than those who are married; for
the last only transgress a law which is capable of being changed,
whereas the first sin against a divine law, which is capable of neither
change nor dispensation."

The pope, pressed with all the importunity which Ferdinand could urge,
reluctantly consented to the administration of the cup to the laity, but
resolutely refused to tolerate the marriage of the clergy. Ferdinand was
excessively annoyed by the stubbornness of the court of Rome in its
refusal to submit to the most reasonable reform, thus rendering it
impossible for him to allay the religious dissensions which were still
spreading and increasing in acrimony. His disappointment was so great
that it is said to have thrown him into the fever of which he died on
the 25th of July, 1564.

For several ages the archdukes of Austria had been endeavoring to unite
the Austrian States with Hungary and Bohemia under one monarchy. The
union had been temporarily effected once or twice, but Ferdinand