“In Bohemia, no persuasion, no argument, no violence, not even arms and war, have succeeded in abolishing the use of the wine as well as the bread in the sacrament. If this is granted, they may be re-united to the Church; but, if refused, they will be driven into the party of the Protestants. So many priests have been degraded by their diocesans for administering the sacrament in both kinds, that the country is almost deprived of priests. Hence children die or grow up to maturity without baptism; and men and women of all ages and of all ranks live, like the brutes, in the grossest ignorance of God and of religion.” The celibacy of the clergy was another point upon which the Protestants were at issue with the Papal councils. Upon this subject Ferdinand wrote to the pope in the following very sensible terms:―― “If a permission to the clergy to be married cannot be granted, may not married men of learning and probity be ordained, according to the custom of the Eastern Church; or married priests be tolerated for a time, provided that they act according to the Catholic or Christian faith? And it may be justly asked whether such concessions would not be far preferable to tolerating, as has unfortunately been done, fornication and concubinage. I cannot avoid adding, what is a common observation, that priests who live in concubinage are guilty of greater sin than those who are married; for the last only transgress a law which is capable of being changed, whereas the first sin against a divine law which is capable of neither change nor dispensation.” The pope, thus pressed by the importunity of Ferdinand, reluctantly consented to the administration of the cup to the laity in his domains, but resolutely refused to tolerate the marriage of the clergy. Ferdinand was so chagrined by this obstinacy, which rendered any conciliation between the antagonistic parties in his State impossible, that he was thrown into a fever, of which he died on the 25th of July, 1564. The eldest son of Ferdinand succeeded to the throne of the Austrian monarchy with the title of Maximilian II. He appears to have been a truly good man,――a sincere disciple of Jesus, of enlarged and cultivated mind. Though he adhered nominally to the Catholic faith, he was the consistent and self-sacrificing friend of the Protestants. Before his accession to the crown he appointed a clergyman of the Protestant faith for his chaplain, and received the sacrament in both kinds from his hands. When warned that by such a course he could never hope to win the imperial crown of Germany, he replied,―― “I will sacrifice all worldly interests for the sake of my salvation.” His father threatened to disinherit him if he did not renounce all connection with the Protestants.