What follows belongs to one of the most noted chapters of universal history. The unbroken chain of Swedish victories, the noble character of the king and the severe discipline upheld among his men, who commenced and ended their battles with prayers and hymns, astounded the world. The exalted nobility of Gustavus Adolphus appears to us all the more striking, contrasted with the faithlessness, vanity and cowardice of the contemporary reigning princes of Germany and Denmark. His victories appear all the more remarkable because the greatest warriors of the age--Tilly, Wallenstein and Pappenheim--were his adversaries. He was received by the people of Germany as a liberator, and his memory is blessed by every thinking German, who admits that the Swedes, Gustavus Adolphus and Axel Oxenstierna, completed the work which the Germans, Luther and Melanchthon, created. The loftiness of the ideals which inspired Gustavus Adolphus have been doubted, but not with justice. He was brought up in a severely Christian home and the sincerity of his piety is unmistakable. His father’s clairvoyant views upon the coming religious conflict were familiar to him since his early youth, while he was, through his mother, related in blood to the majority of Protestant princes. Thus apparently predestined, as the greatest statesman and warrior of his age, to take up the cause of his persecuted brethren, he did not do so before the ambitious Christian IV. had utterly failed in his attempts and with contumely been forced to retire. It is not probable that Gustavus Adolphus ever thought of placing the crown of the Roman empire upon his head, but plausible to suppose that he had in view the formation of a strong union of the Protestant countries of Northern Europe. Before leaving Sweden, Gustavus II. convoked the representatives of his people, holding on his arm his little daughter Christine, four years old, for whom he asked their pledge of allegiance. His farewell speech was touching in its simplicity and the premonition of his tragic end. Not for worldly glory, but to save his country from peril and his brethren from distress, he undertook this risky war. “Generally,” he said, “it happens thus that the vessel hauls water until it goes to pieces. With me likewise, that I, who in so many perils for the weal of my country have shed my blood, and yet until this day have been spared through the grace of God, now at last must lose my life. For that reason I will this time commend you, the collected Estates of the realm, to the hand of God, the Supreme One, wishing that we, after this our miserable and burdensome life, according to the will of God, may meet again, to dwell in the celestial and infinite.” These words do not resemble the terse, striking speeches of his grandfather, but they bear the stamp of sincerity, and by them Gustavus Adolphus, his work and his purpose, are judged by the Swedish people.