Protestantism in Poland and Bohemia - James Aitken Wylie

seemed now within his reach. That was not the
tiara of the primacy -- for, if so, he needed not have
become the exile; his ambition was to make the
Church of Poland one of the brightest lights in the
galaxy of the Reformation. He had arrived at his
great task with fully-ripened powers. Of illustrious
birth, and of yet more illustrious learning and piety,
he was nevertheless, from remembrance of his fall,
humble as a child. Presiding over the Churches of
more than half the kingdom, Protestantism, under
his fostering care, waxed stronger every day. He
held Synods. He actively assisted in the translation
of the first Protestant Bible in Poland, that he might
give his countrymen direct access to the fountain of
truth. He laboured unweariedly in the cause of
union. He had especially at heart the healing of the
great breach between the Lutheran and the
Reformed -- the sore through which so much of the
vital force of Protestantism was ebbing away. The
final goal which he kept ever in eye, and at which
he hoped one day to arrive, was the erection of a
national Church, Reformed in doctrine on the basis
of the Word of God, and constituted in government
as similarly to the Churches over which he had
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