Protestantism in Poland and Bohemia - James Aitken Wylie

Chapter 4
Organisation of the Protestant
Church of Poland
THE short-lived golden age of Poland was now
waning into the silver one. But before recording the
slow gathering of the shadows -- -the passing of the
day into twilight, and the deepening of the twilight
into night -- we must cast a momentary glance,
first, at the constitution of the Polish Protestant
Church as seen at this the period of her fullest
development; and secondly, at certain political
events, which bore with powerful effect upon the
Protestant character of the nation, and sealed the
fate of Poland as a free country.
In its imperfect unity we trace the absence of a
master-hand in the construction of the Protestant
Church of Poland. Had one great mind led in the
Reformation of that country, one system of
ecclesiastical government would doubtless from
the first have been given to all Poland. As it was,
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