Protestantism in Poland and Bohemia - James Aitken Wylie

to the horrors of the death-bed of Francis Spira,
and was so impressed by them that he resigned his
bishopric and left Italy. He it was that now came to
Poland. (See McCrie, Italy.)
Had the life of Prince Radziwill been
prolonged, so great was his influence with the king,
it is just possible that the vacillation of Sigismund
Augustus might have been overcome, and the
throne permanently won for the cause of Poland's
Reformation; but that possibility, if it ever existed,
was suddenly extinguished. In 1565, while yet in
the prime of life, and in the midst of his labors for
the emancipation of his native land from the Papal
yoke, the prince died. When he felt his last hour
approaching he summoned to his bed-side his
eldest son, Nicholas Christopher, and solemnly
charged him to abide constant in the profession of
his father's creed, and the service of his father's
God; and to employ the illustrious name, the vast
possessions, and the great influence which had
descended to him for the cause of the Reformation.
So ill did that son fulfill the charge, delivered
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