The war had nevertheless consequences which we must still deeply deplore; it has long severed the third of Germany from intellectual communion of spirit with their kindred races. The German hereditary possessions of the Imperial family have ever since been united in a special state. Powerfully and incessantly has the foreign principle worked which there prevails. For a long time the depressed nation scarcely felt the loss. In Germany the opposition between Romanism and Protestantism had been weakened, and in the following century it was in a great measure overcome. Even those territories which were compelled by their rulers to maintain their old faith, had participated in the slow and laborious progress which had been made since the peace. It is not to be denied that the Protestant countries long remained the leaders, but in spite of much opposition, those of the old faith followed the new stream, and the results of increasing civilization flowed in brotherly union from one soul to another; joy and suffering were in general mutual, and as the political requirements and wishes of the Protestant and Roman Catholics were the same, the feeling of intellectual unity became gradually more active. It was otherwise in the distant countries which Ferdinand II. and his successors had bequeathed as conquered property. The losses which the German races had experienced were great, but the injury to the Austrian nationalities was incomparably greater. To them had happened what must now appear, to any one who examines accurately, most terrible. Almost the whole national civilization, which in spite of all hindrances had been developed for more than a century, was expelled with an iron rod. The mass of the people remained; their leaders--opulent landed proprietors of the old indigenous race, manly patriots, men of distinguished character and learning, and intelligent pastors, were driven into exile. The exiles have never been counted, who perished of hunger, and the horrors of war; those also who settled in foreign countries can scarcely be reckoned. Undoubtedly their collective number amounted to hundreds of thousands. It is thanks to the Bohemian exiles, that Electoral Saxony recovered its loss in men and capital quicker than other countries. Yet it is not the numbers, however great, which give a true representation of the loss. For those who fell into calamity on account of their faith and political convictions were the noblest spirits, the leaders of the people, the representatives of the highest civilization of the time. But it was not the loss of them alone that made the Emperor's dominions so weak and dormant; the millions also that remained behind were crushed. Driven by every low motive, by rough violence or the prospect of earthly advantage, from one faith to another, they had lost all self-respect and the last ideal which even the most commonplace man preserves, the feeling that he has a place in his heart that cannot be bought.