The enemies of the combatants alone derived gain from it. Their hatred against the Reformation appeared now to be wholly justified. "Here you have," said they, "the effects, when children tear loose from the Everlasting Mother. They now turn against themselves the intellectual weapons, so highly bepraised, which they have used against us. What others are left for them against us, save those of iron?" Now, to these neither Luther nor Melanchton would have recourse. But Zwingli tried it, and--fell. The Reformation seemed about to go backward. Paralyzing formulas took the place of the living Gospel: first, the Augsburg Confession; then, the Helvetic, and for others again, the XXXIX Articles of the Episcopal Church of England. Protestant Popes rose up beside the Catholic, who, from this time forth, wore his triple crown with greater security. It is true, indeed, that Zwingli also handed in a confession of faith at the Imperial Diet, but only in defence, not to force it upon others. He expressly said, in the letter to the Emperor, which accompanied it: "I _alone_ deliver it, without encroaching on the rights of my people." According to his view the Gospel only is unassailable. Whatever of true or false man adds to the interpretation of the Divine law, he does it on his own responsibility. With this view tolerance and love, as well as progressive science, are possible; all others lead to stiffness and intolerance, and such was the result then on all sides. Or is it perchance an evangelical spirit, which breathes in Calvin's article: "That the heretic should be punished with death," and in the funeral pile of Servetus? Were the rack-chambers of Queen Elizabeth[8] much more Christian than the dragonades of Louis XIV., and did Ireland live more happily under the yoke of a High Church forced upon her, than Spain under the Inquisition? Were the persecutions begun at the Synod of Dort, justified by the anathemas, with which the Council of Trent disgraced itself? All have erred. Instead of kindling new passions, the call of our age goes forth, to unite rather in a common acknowledgment of sin. This is the confession in which all can again find themselves; but the Gospel is the light that shows the way to reconciliation. What is there yet to hinder it? Two enemies, and in two verses a spirited poet (Goethe) has thus portrayed them: Thou must reign through victory, Or a servant kneel and lose, Suffering or triumph choose, Th' anvil or the hammer be. This is the one; the principle of the absolutist, in a spiritual or worldly mantle; and the other, the principle of the demagogue in the Jacobin's cap, as well as in the Jesuit's garb, forms the counter-part: 'Tis foolish to wait for improvement in fools; Ye children of prudence, make them your tools.