We are not surprised, therefore, to read that “it was said to be ascertained that not more, perhaps, than the thirtieth part of the population remained Catholic: step by step, a national constitution unfolded itself, formed upon the principles of Protestantism.” “In the Rauris, and the Gastein, in St. Veit, Tamsweg, and Radstadt, the inhabitants loudly demanded the sacramental cup, and this being refused [in order to compel them to remain Catholic], they ceased altogether to attend the sacrament. They withheld their children, too, from the [Catholic] schools.”
“The Rhenish nobility had early embraced Protestantism.... In all the towns there existed already a Protestant party.... The inhabitants of Mainz, too, did not hesitate to send their children to Protestant schools. In short, from west to east, and from north to south, throughout all Germany, Protestantism had unquestionably the preponderance.”
Accomplished by education
“The Protestant notions extended their vivifying energies to the most remote and most forgotten corners of Europe. What an immense domain had they conquered within the space of forty years! From Iceland to the Pyrenees, from Finland to the heights of the Italian Alps. Even beyond the latter mountains opinions analogous had once, as we are aware, prevailed. Protestantism embraced the whole range of the Latin church. It had laid hold of a vast majority of the higher classes, and of the minds that took part in public life; whole nations clung to it with enthusiasm, and states had been remodeled by it. This is the more deserving of our wonder, inasmuch as Protestantism was by no means a mere antithesis, a negation of the papacy, or an emancipation from its rule; it was in the highest degree positive, a renovation of Christian notions and principles, that sway human life even to the profoundest mysteries of the soul.”[128] Notice again that this was due to the educational ideas propagated by Protestants, and the reason why the papacy was so fast losing its foothold was because it had not yet learned that this Reformation, which began in schools, and was carried forward by Christian schools, must be defeated in schools and by teachers. For forty years Protestants had the right of way in education, and the results were stupendous.
Protestant schools winning everywhere
Ranke says: “Protestant opinions had triumphed in the universities and educational establishments. Those old champions of Catholicism [the teachers] who had withstood Luther were dead, or in advanced years: young men capable of supplying their places had not yet arisen. Twenty years had elapsed in Vienna since a single student of the university had taken priest’s orders. Even in Ingoldstadt, pre-eminently Catholic as it was, no competent candidates of the faculty of theology presented themselves to fill the places that had hitherto been always occupied by ecclesiastics. The city of Cologne founded an endowed school; but when all the arrangements for it had been made, it was found that the regent was a Protestant. Cardinal Otto Truchess established a new university in his city of Dillingen, with the express design of resisting the progress of Protestantism. The credit of this institution was maintained for some years by a few distinguished Spanish theologians; but as soon as these left it, not a single scholar could be found in all Germany to succeed to their places, and even these were likewise filled with Protestants. About this period the teachers in Germany were all, almost without exception, Protestants. The whole body of the rising generation sat at their feet, and imbibed a hatred of the pope with the first rudiments of learning.”[129]
Success of Reformation due to schools
Stress is not laid on their hatred of the pope, but on the fact that the rising generation sat at the feet of Protestant teachers throughout Germany; that parents withheld their children from the papal school, even though it might be necessary in so doing to send them from home to be educated; and finally, that the papacy was dying, and Protestantism was spreading through the work of the schools. Would that those schools might have retained their pristine purity and simplicity. No power on earth could then have retarded the progress of Protestantism, and instead of only modifying the history of many countries, it would eventually have swept from the earth all forms of tyranny, both civil and religious, for it breathed the freedom of the gospel, and no oppression could stand before it. It is as impossible to withstand pure Christian education as it is to withstand Christ, whose power is its life and strength.