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Protestantism in Poland and Bohemia - James Aitken Wylie

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monks likewise were constra<strong>in</strong>ed to acknowledge<br />

their share <strong>in</strong> the pious fraud. Great sc<strong>and</strong>al arose;<br />

the clergy bewailed the day the Pope's box had<br />

crossed the Alps; <strong>and</strong> Christopher Radziwill,<br />

receiv<strong>in</strong>g from the relics a virtue he had not<br />

anticipated, was led to the perusal of the Scriptures,<br />

<strong>and</strong> f<strong>in</strong>ally embraced, with his whole family, the<br />

Protestant faith. When his great relative, Pr<strong>in</strong>ce<br />

Radziwill, died <strong>in</strong> 1565, Christopher came forward,<br />

<strong>and</strong> to some extent supplied his loss to the<br />

Protestant cause.<br />

The k<strong>in</strong>g, still pursu<strong>in</strong>g a middle course,<br />

solicited from the Pope, Paul IV., a Reformation<br />

which he might have had to better effect from his<br />

Protestant clergy, if only he would have permitted<br />

them to meet <strong>and</strong> beg<strong>in</strong> the work. Sigismund<br />

Augustus addressed a letter to the Pontiff at the<br />

Council of Trent, dem<strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong>g the five follow<strong>in</strong>g<br />

th<strong>in</strong>gs: --<br />

1st, the performance of mass <strong>in</strong> the Polish<br />

tongue;<br />

2ndly, Communion <strong>in</strong> both k<strong>in</strong>ds;<br />

64

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