# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 04 24_S138
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

138

he did it under compulsion. The Emperor charged him, and his brother August, publicly also with the execution of the ban. "Since Duke Maurice, on account of the close kinship and hereditary confraternity, has a right of succession and reversion to the lands of the two outlaws, he shall now also take possession of them promptly, and keep them in safe custody. For otherwise everyone would retain as his own property what he had won and conquered, and the right of kinship, together with other treaties, would not help him in the least. Yes, he should rather, if he did not obediently comply with this Imperial command, expect to suffer the same punishment as the outlaws." For appearance' sake the Estates were now once more repeatedly called together to deliberate and decide upon this important affair; letters, too, were sent from him and the Estates to the Elector and Landgrave in the camp, in order to excuse himself by necessity, since others already, namely Ferdinand with the Hungarians and Bohemians, were making ready for an invasion; in order to move them, in a manner, to consent that the Electorate should meanwhile be occupied by Maurice. In vain did the Landgrave represent to him with what great benefits the Elector had obligated him and his house, how he would brand himself before all the world with the indelible stain of ingratitude and treachery, and how, since the other allies by virtue of their treaty neither might nor would let the Elector be left in the lurch, a war between brothers would be called forth in Germany.

In vain did the preachers at Leipzig represent to him: that the Emperor was openly opposing the true Christian doctrine by deed, since he had bound himself to the Pope, as the highest enemy of God, of the truth and of the Gospel of Christ, for the extirpation of the Lutherans, and was bringing their bloodthirsty mortal enemies upon them, and also permitted those to be killed and executed who confess God's Word, and thus made himself partaker of their innocently shed blood. From this it was plain and manifest what the adherents of the Evangelical doctrine and truth had to comfort themselves with, or to think of him, and how the fair, smooth and gentle words must be interpreted and construed, etc. He invaded the Electorate, and it required, to be sure, not great art and bravery when he, with the exception of Wittenberg, Gotha and Eisenach, subdued it completely in a short time.

In Germany a cry of indignation arose that he, whom he ought to have honored in a father's stead, to whom he owed almost alone that he had land and people to govern, who had placed so noble a confidence in him, now repaid with such shameful ingratitude, indeed, so far as lay in him, dealt the death-blow to the cause of the faith. Lampoons and libels, too, were not lacking. In the Emperor's camp the news of the successful occupation of the Electorate spread such joy that the victory was celebrated with great rejoicing and the firing of cannon. In the camp of the allies reigned terror and indignation. The princes went home, the army of the allies dissolved, and the whole Upper Country was now opened to the Emperor at the moment when his own army, weakened to the utmost, could scarcely hold out any longer. Before this the Emperor had had the triumph that the allied princes sought peace or an armistice from him. His terms, however, were so hard that they could not agree to them. He demanded no less than that both princes should surrender their own persons together with all their goods to mercy or no mercy.

The Emperor in Upper Germany.

Upper Germany submitted without a stroke of the sword, and had to put up with whatever the conqueror laid upon it. The Emperor treated them like rebels and insurgents, who had to acknowledge and praise even the severest punishments as leniency. First came the old Elector Palatine, and threw himself at the Emperor's feet. The Emperor at first handled him roughly, yet in the end lifted him from the ground, called him his cousin, kissed his gray head, and forgave him. But the Reformation just introduced in his land was suspended; everything now had to remain as it was. Not so well did it go with the Duke of Wurtemberg. Only through the mediation of the Elector Palatine did he obtain a reconciliation with the Emperor, but under the very hardest conditions. Since by reason of illness he could not himself make the apology in person, his envoys had to appear on their knees before the Emperor in the presence of a brilliant assembly of princes and imperial servants, and during the whole proceeding, which lasted almost half an hour, remain kneeling with bowed heads, confess the guilt publicly, and beg for mercy for the sake of God and His mercy, and His Imperial Majesty's far-famed goodness. The prince himself had nevertheless later to repeat this humbling apology personally and publicly. It is told that the old Duke rode on horseback before the Emperor, and instead of himself had his horse, which he had trained for the purpose, make the genuflection. The cities fared no better; they almost vied with one another in submitting to the victor. Ulm bought the imperial favor with 100,000 guilders (Wurtemberg had had to pay 300,000), had to deliver twelve pieces of ordnance, and to receive an imperial garrison. Augsburg, which had the brave Schärtlin within its walls, and might well still have held out, begged him with tears to depart from them, begged on its knees for mercy, had to deliver 150,000 gold guilders and twelve pieces of ordnance; Meiningen paid 50,000, and so on. Darmstadt was taken by Bühren, and came off still leniently. He did not venture to attack Frankfurt, and had already begun to distribute his army into winter quarters, but the Frankfurters in full terror sent envoys after him, and surrendered to him voluntarily; they had to pay 80,000 crowns. "It is truly," wrote King Francis of France to his envoy at Cassel, "a thing that passes all belief, that people who are so powerful, and have sound understanding, would rather use their goods to plunge themselves into bondage than to preserve themselves in their freedom." But their heart had failed them. Magdeburg and Bremen were at last the only cities that did not submit to the Emperor. A shameful trick was still employed upon the envoys of the Swabian cities. Before they appeared before the Emperor, they had resolved also to ask that, in matters of religion, nothing might be changed among them. Meanwhile the Imperial Chancellor Naves sought to talk them out of it. If they made mention of religion, he said, the Emperor would take it as though they harbored distrust toward him, since he had, after all, explained himself abundantly on this point at the very beginning of the war; that would only provoke him, and make the obtaining of the favor they sought more difficult for them. Thereby, to be sure, an embarrassment was spared the Emperor. For had he refused it to them, the secret would have been betrayed. Had he granted it, the Pope and the whole Roman party would have been offended. The latter was already so vexed with the Emperor, because he had not publicly given out the real ground of the war, namely the extirpation of the heretics, and had also already recalled his troops before the end of the war, indeed, as the French envoy Mortier assures, from fear that the Emperor would become too powerful, he is said to have urged the King of France to support the Protestants under the hand, in order to humble the Emperor. Francis himself on the one hand constantly incited the Protestants against the Emperor, on the other hand he kept dinning in the Pope's ears, and accused him harshly of letting the Imperial cities have the free exercise of their religion. So lay the poor Church, couched between strong lions and poisonous serpents.

But still quite other trials were to come upon her.

(To be continued.)

(Sent in by Pastor Röbbelen.)

The Revelation of St. John.

The Twelfth Chapter.

In this chapter the final struggle and victory of the Church is joined to what she has already earlier won. It appears as a new laurel in the unfading wreath of victory which is woven in heaven for the Bride of the Lamb, while she lies on earth in travail, as a new diamond in her crown. Or, to use another figure, because none exhausts the full content of that which can be known in heaven alone: as a commander after the last decisive battle only reaps the fruit of all the former ones, as the triumph of Roman conquerors was often adorned by many captive kings, so must the feast of victory which is celebrated in heaven over the fall of the antichristian papacy glorify all the defeats which the arch-enemy of the children of God has suffered from the beginning.

Since the Church Reformation here takes its place in the series of victories which since the apostles' time of