The appeal was pathetic and sincere. It fell on adders' ears. His scheme found favour neither with Brethren nor with Utraquists. To the Brethren Augusta was a Jesuitical juggler. To the Utraquists he was a supple athlete trying to dodge his way out of prison. "You shift about," wrote the Brethren, "in a most remarkable manner. You make out the Utraquist Church to be different from what it really is, in order to keep a door open through which you may go." In their judgment he was nothing less than an ambitious schemer. If his scheme were carried out, they said, he would not only be First Elder of the Brethren's Church, but administrator of the whole united Church. At last, however, King Maximilian interceded with the Emperor in his favour, and Augusta was set free on the one condition that he would not preach in public {1564.}. His hair was white; his beard was long; his brow was furrowed; his health was shattered; and he spent his last days amongst the Brethren, a defeated and broken-hearted man. He was restored to his old position as First Elder; he settled down again at Jungbunzlau; and yet somehow the old confidence was never completely restored. In vain he upheld his daring scheme of union. John Blahoslaw opposed him to the teeth. For the time, at least, John Blahoslaw was in the right. Augusta throughout had made one fatal blunder. As the Utraquists were now more Protestant in doctrine he thought that they had begun to love the Brethren. The very contrary was the case. If two people agree in nine points out of ten, and only differ in one, they will often quarrel more fiercely with each other than if they disagreed in all the ten. And that was just what happened in Bohemia. The more Protestant the Utraquists became in doctrine, the more jealous they were of the Brethren. And thus Augusta was honoured by neither party. Despised by friend and foe alike, the old white-haired Bishop tottered to the silent tomb. "He kept out of our way," says the sad old record, "as long as he could; he had been among us long enough." As we think of the noble life he lived, and the bitter gall of his eventide, we may liken him to one of those majestic mountains which tower in grandeur under the noontide sun, but round whose brows the vapours gather as night settles down on the earth. In the whole gallery of Bohemian portraits there is none, says Gindely, so noble in expression as his; and as we gaze on those grand features we see dignity blended with sorrow, and pride with heroic fire.[43] CHAPTER XII. -- THE GOLDEN AGE, 1572-1603.