He himself, with a heavy heart, broke in
two the power of his house.

This did not render the political position of Germany more hopeful. The
life of Maurice also passed away like a meteor, and his wild associate
Albrecht of Brandenburg died an early and miserable death.

Then followed the feuds of Grumbach and Cologne, the disputes of
Juelich, and the disorders of Bohemia; one quarrel more contemptible
than the other, and the leaders of both parties equally incapable. The
end was the Thirty years' war.

CHAPTER VIII.

A BURGHER FAMILY.
(1488-1542.)

Our narrative descends from the highest sphere of German life to the
lower circles, in the individual families of which the characteristic
life of the time may be traced. A series of examples shall lead us from
the hardships of the peasant to the life of the privileged classes.

From all times the peasantry have been the great source, from which
fresh family vigour has ascended into the guilds of the cities and the
closets of the learned. Therefore the basis of the prosperity of a
people lies in the simple occupations of the peasant, in that human
labour in which mind and body, work and rest, joy and sorrow, are
regulated by Nature herself; whenever such labour is repressed,
limited, and fettered, the whole nation becomes diseased. The
destruction of the free peasant has more than once undermined the
political existence of states, as for example in Poland; and indeed it
caused the deadly weakness of the great Roman empire and the decay of
the ancient world. The more abundantly and freely fresh vigour ascends
from the lower strata into the higher circles, the more powerful and
energetic will be the political life of the nation. And again, the less
declining families are prevented, by artificial supports, from falling
into the great mass of the people, the more rapid and vigorous will be
the ascent of those who are struggling upwards.

It was by favouring in a remarkable degree the rise of families out of
this great source of national vigour, that the Reformation revived the
youth of the nation. The abolition of enforced celibacy was one of the
greatest steps towards social progress; it secures still the ascendency
of the Protestant over the Roman Catholic districts. Up to the time of
Luther, the greatest portion of the German popular strength which arose
from the cottage of