From the Diet of Worms to the Augsburg Confession - James Aitken Wylie

son," though often lost, is always won in the end,
but therewith does not accord the fact. The history
of Greece, of Rome, and of other nations, shows
us, on a large view of matters, liberty dissociated
from religion fighting a losing and not a winning
battle. The more prominent instance, though not
the only one, in modern times, is France. There we
behold a brave nation fighting for "liberty" in
contradistinction to, or rather as dissociated from
"religion," and, after a conflict of well-nigh a
century, liberty is not yet rooted in France. The
little Holland is an instance on the other side. It
fought a great battle for religion, and in winning it
won everything else besides. The only notable
examples with which history presents us, of great
masses triumphant over established tyrannies, are
those of the primitive Christians, and the
Reformers of the sixteenth century. Charles V.
would have walked at will over Christendom,
treading all rights and aspirations into the dust, had
any weaker principle than conscience, evoked by
Protestantism, confronted him at this epoch. The
first to scale the fortress of despotism are ever the
champions of religion; the champions of civil
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