In most instances the stirring periods of a nation's history are not the periods in which the nation grows. Warfare, even though it end in victory, must be accompanied by loss, and the very achievements that arouse our ardor bring with them evils that long years of prosperity cannot efface. Take, as a single example, the dazzling victories of Charles XII. He was, beyond all doubt, the most successful general that Sweden ever had. One after another the provinces around the Baltic yielded to his sway, and at one time the Swedish frontiers had been extended into regions of which no man before his age had dreamt. Yet with what result? Sweden was impoverished, commerce was at a standstill, education had been neglected, and the dominions for which his people had poured out their blood during many years were lost almost in a single day. His career shows, if it shows anything, that prosperity is incompatible with war. No man can serve two masters. So long as nations are in active and continued warfare, they cannot enjoy the blessings or even the comforts that belong to them in time of peace. A like argument may be drawn from the reign of Gustavus Vasa. The early years of the Swedish Revolution were marked by bloodshed. The country was in a state of famine, superstition was universal, literature was almost without a champion, and art was practically dead. Not till the warfare ceased did people turn their thoughts to matters of education, of religion, or of other things that lend a charm to life; and even then the country was hampered during a considerable period by poverty,--an outcome of the war. It is in this last period of the Revolution--a period of peace--that the chief work of Gustavus Vasa was accomplished. Then occurred the great changes in Church government and doctrine that made Lutherans out of Roman Catholics, and in place of accountability to the pope made every soul accountable to God. In the first few years of his supremacy the monarch's opposition to popery was based almost entirely on politics, but by the middle of 1525 he began openly to oppose the Romish Church on grounds of faith.