MAN earthy, of the earth, an hungred feeds
On earth's dark poison tree—
Wild gourds, and deadly roots, and bitter weeds;
And as his food, is he.
And hungry souls there are that find and eat
God's manna day by day—
And glad they are, their life is fresh and sweet;
For as their food, are they.
—G. TERSTEEGEN
IN that part of Germany which specially concerns us in this history, we must not regard the end of the Thirty Years' War as the beginning of a time of peace. The Rhine provinces, Cleve, Julich, and Berg, had a history of their own. Peace had been there an unknown delight for many a year before the great war began.
These provinces had been the thoroughfare for Spanish soldiers during the eighty years' war of the Dutch provinces against the tyranny of the Inquisition. They had been the fighting ground of Spanish and Dutch troops again and again during that long war. They had been themselves a bone of contention between the two houses of Neuburg and Brandenburg, not to mention that the emperor at Vienna had considered it his duty to settle these disputes by claiming them for himself, They had also been promised by him to the Elector of Saxony, who had, as he believed, some shadowy claim upon them likewise.
Consequently, in the years that followed the Peace of Westphalia, they remained mostly without any regular government. Who was to govern them ? was the question as yet unanswered. The Prince of Pfalz Neuburg, who was a Catholic, asserted his rights by tyrannous proceedings against the Protestants, for the inhabitants of these provinces were with few exceptions Protestant.
In self-defense, they called in the help of the Great Elector, Frederick William of Brandenburg—now of Prussia.
These disputes continued, with occasional acts of violence, until something like an agreement was made in the year i666. They were then divided between Neuburg and Brandenburg. It was however only a nominal agreement. The actual fact was a constant condition of disputing and disorder.
So did all hope of a peaceful life become more and more distant, till it was utterly extinguished by the second " Robber-war" of Louis XIV. in 1672, from which period Germany and France remained at enmity with one another till nearly the end of the century, with a short interval which had the name of peace for the nine years ending in 1683.
Thus when we arrive at the last quarter of the seventeenth century, and look round us on German courts and castles, on German town life and country life, we draw back sickened and disgusted at the loathsome picture. One passing glance and we have seen enough, more than enough.
Let us turn the pages of history, and go back into the depths of the darkness, where we find at least some sort of faith, and some notion of the existence of holiness, and some delight in things beautiful and things divine. Some heroism, some enthusiasm, something not altogether lower than the level of the heathen—not to say of beasts.
Let us go back and consort with the men who went on crusades, and built abbeys and cathedrals, and were knight-errants, and ascetics, and pilgrims, and minne-singers, anything rather than these swine of history.
" It would be hard to find," writes Professor Bryce, "from the Peace of Westphalia to the French Revolution, a single grand character, or a single noble enterprise, a single sacrifice made to great public interests, a single instance in which the welfare of nations was preferred to the selfish passions of their princes."
But the object, for one thing, of this history, is to bring before us the glorious truth, that many waters cannot quench the love that came down from heaven, neither could the floods drown it.
God, who looked down upon these scenes of indescribable wickednesss and uncleanness, upon these scenes of misery and suffering, upon the awful hypocrisy which used His name as a pretext for slaughter and plunder, and torture and self-indulgence —that same God also beheld, in the midst of the darkness, those who sighed and cried for the abominations of Christendom, and who, even in the midst of Sardis, had not defiled their garments.
It is a pleasanter task to turn to them, and to watch the dawning of a brighter day for the Church of God.
Had not Christ said, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world " ? Had He not promised, "I will send you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth ; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him but ye know Him ; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you " ?
And it may be in some of the by-ways and back lanes of history we may have the surprise of meeting with " some noble enterprise, some sacrifice made for the great interests " of Christ, some instance in which the welfare of lost men and women was preferred to the selfish passions of degraded men.
For God works down here by men and women ; but less often by the great and the renowned than by the small and the unknown—by those who were called, in the days of which we speak, by a name their God has given them, " The quiet in the land,"