ready in possession of the Choir: but the whole Church would be so
much better. "Was it not Catholic once?" thought Karl Philip to himself:
"built by our noble Ancestor Kaiser Rupert of the Pfalz, Rupert KLEMM
['Pincers,' so named for his firmness of mind]:--why should these
Heretics have it? I will build them another!" These thoughts, in 1719,
the third year of Karl Philip's rule, had broken out into open action
(29th August, 4th September the consummation of it) [Mauvillon, i.
340-345.] and precisely in the ime when Friedrich Wilhelm was penning
that first Didactic Morsel which we read, grave clouds from the
Palatinate were beginning to overshadow the royal mind more or less.

For the poor Heidelberg Consistorium, as they could not undertake to
give up their Church on request of his Serenity,--"How dare we, or can
we?" answered they,--had been driven out by compulsion and stratagem.
Partly strategic was the plan adopted, to avoid violence; smith's
picklocks being employed, and also mason's crowbars: but the end was, On
the 31st of August, 1719, Consistorium and Congregation found themselves
fairly in the street, and the HEILIGE-GEIST KIRCHE clean gone from them.
Screen of the Choir is torn down; one big Catholic edifice now; getting
decorated into a Court Church, where Serene Highness may feel his mind
comfortable.

The poor Heidelbergers, thus thrown into the street, made applications,
lamentations; but with small prospect of help: to whom apply with any
sure prospect? Remonstrances from Hessen-Cassel have proved unavailing
with his bigoted Serene Highness. CORPS EVANGELICORUM, so presided
over as at present, what can be had of such a Corpus? Long-winded
lucubrations at the utmost; real action, in such a matter; none. Or
will the Kaiser, his Jesuits advising him, interfere to do us justice?
Kur-Mainz and the rest;--it is everywhere one story. Everywhere
unhappy Protestantism getting bad usage, and ever worse; and no Corpus
Evangelicorum, or appointed Watchdog, doing other than hang its ears,
and look sorry for itself and us!--

The Heidelbergers, however, had applied to Friedrich Wilhelm among
others. Friedrich Wilhelm, who had long looked on these Anti-Protestant
phenomena with increasing anger, found now that this of the Heidelberg
Catechism and HEILIGE-GEIST KIRCHE was enough to make one's patience run
over. Your unruly Catholic bull, plunging about, and goring men in that
mad absurd manner, it will behoove that