Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/172

 been true government, wherever bitter struggles have been endured, wherever victory has been won in the face of mighty opposition, there it has been that promise of eternal life which governed and struggled and won the victory. Believing in that promise the German Protestants, already mentioned in these addresses, entered upon the struggle. Do you think they did not know that peoples could be governed by that old belief too, and held together in law and order, and that under the old belief men could procure a comfortable existence? Why, then, did their princes decide upon armed resistance, and why did the peoples enthusiastically make such resistance? It was for heaven and for eternal bliss that they willingly poured out their blood. But what earthly power could have penetrated to the Holy of holies in their souls and rooted out their belief—a belief which had been revealed to them once for all, and on which alone they based their hope of bliss? Thus it was not their own bliss for which they fought; this was already assured to them; it was the bliss of their children and of their grandchildren as yet unborn and of all posterity as yet unborn. These, too, should be brought up in that same doctrine, which had appeared to them as the only means of salvation. These, too, should partake of the salvation that had dawned for them. This hope alone it was that was threatened by the enemy. For it, for an order of things that long after their death should blossom on their graves, they so joyfully shed their blood. Let us admit that they were not entirely clear in their own minds, that they made mistakes in their choice of words to denote the noblest that was in them, and with their lips did injustice to their souls; let us willingly confess that their confession of faith was not the sole and exclusive means of becoming a partaker of the heaven beyond the grave; none the less