rless instances of their despotic usurpations. They claimed supreme
control over the religious interests of their jurisdiction, and came
into frequent conflict with the ecclesiastical tribunals. They
maintained a tolerable show of religion, however, considering it a
matter of prime importance to have the services of chaplains, and to
give due public prominence to doctrinal questions. Their courts were
most generally irreligious, and sometimes notoriously corrupt.

Walther, the court chaplain of Ulrich II. of East Friesland, wrote in
1637 a letter from which we take the following words: "I would much
rather be silent concerning my sore misfortune, which I am here
undergoing than, by speaking, to make the wounds of my heart break out
afresh. These infernal courtiers, among whom I am compelled to live
against my will, doubt those truths which even the heathen have learned
to believe." A writer of 1630 describes three classes of skeptics among
the nobility of Hamburg; _first_, those who believe that religion is
nothing but a mere fiction, invented to keep the masses within
restraint; _second_, those who give preference to no faith, but think
that all religions have a germ of truth; and _third_, those confessing
that there must be one true religion, are unable to decide whether it is
papal, Calvinist, or Lutheran; and consequently believe nothing at all.

This classification might be applied to the whole of Protestant Germany,
as far as the higher classes are concerned. They exhibited a growing
taste for antiquity; and, with them, there was but a slight difference
between the sublime utterances of inspiration and the masterpieces of
pagan genius. We find in a catechism of that time that the proverbs of
Cato and the _Mimi Publiani_ constitute an authorized appendix.

A practical infidelity, bearing the name of Epicureanism, prevailed even
before the war; and it became more decided and injurious as the war
progressed. The highest idea of religion was adherence to creed. Princes
who even thought themselves devoted and earnest, had no experimental
knowledge of regeneration; and in this, as we have shown, they were but
little surpassed by the clergy themselves. Orthodoxy was the aim and
pride of those religionists. Hear the dying testimony of John Christian
Koenig, in 1664: "My dear Confessor, since I observe that the good Lord
is about to take me out of this world, I want it understood that I
remain unchanged and firm to the Au