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

defense; yet it alone is safe. The lightnings flash,
but their bolts pass without striking it. The thundercloud
gathers, but rolls away and bursts in another
quarter of the sky. The Powers that struggle and
fight around it are smitten, one after another, first
with decadence and in the end with ruin; but this
grand cause is seen marching steadily onward to
triumph. France is humiliated; her sovereign's head
is bowed on the field of Pavia, not again to be
lifted up with the knightly grace that adorned it of
yore. A sudden bolt lays the glory of Rome in the
dust, and the queen-like beauty then marred is fated
nevermore to flourish in the same high degree. The
mighty Empire of Charles V. is shattered by the
rude shocks it sustains, and before going to the
tomb that monarch is destined to see that
consumption of the Spanish power setting in which
was to continue till Spain should become the
frightful wreck which we behold it at this day. But
as regards Protestantism, its progress is liker that of
a monarch going to be crowned.
Every step carries it into a wider arena, and
every year lifts it to a higher platform, till at length
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