Protestantism in Hungary and Transylvania - James Aitken Wylie

Protestants, and partly to the quiet and easy manner
in which the Reformation had diffused itself over
the country. There had been no convulsion, no
period of national agony to wrench the Hungarians,
as a people, from the communion of Rome, and to
teach them the wisdom, not only of standing apart,
but of putting their Church into a posture of
defense against the tempests which might arise in
the future. The mariner who has never sailed save
on calm seas, is apt to leave matters negligently
arranged on board, and to pay the penalty of his
carelessness when at last the horizon blackens, and
his bark becomes the sport of the mountainous
billows.
It was a yet greater calamity that a bitter
intestine war was. weakening the strength and
destroying the unity of the Hungarian Church. In
its early days, the Lutherans and Calvinists had
dwelt together in peace; but soon the concord was
broken, not again to be restored. The tolerant
Ferdinand I had gone to the grave: he had been
followed first on the throne, and next to the tomb,
by his son Maximilian II, the only real friend the
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