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and that only in respect to the doctrines herein mentioned, and others held in common by the reformers. His opponents accorded him the praise of possessing great learning combined with modesty, meekness, piety, and a loving spirit. Although the establishment of an independent church was a purpose never entertained by Schwenkfeld, he had, so far as successful teaching of his distinctive doctrines went, prepared the way for it. Many clergymen and noblemen and other influential and learned men in Silesia and throughout Germany, and in some localities, especially in the Principalities of Liegnitz and Jauer, almost the entire population, embraced his doctrines; and for a time his adherents enjoyed the public ministration of the Gospel in not a few of the churches where they were most numerous, not as a distinct sect, but as part of the reformed Church in its wider sense. But their prosperity was short-lived. State reasons inclined the Protestant princes to favor the larger following of Luther, and most of the evangelical pastors who adhered to Schwenkfeld's views were displaced, while but few were permitted to end their days with the churches which they served in Schwenkfeld's time, and these under admonitions to observe the Sacraments according to the Lutheran practice. Even Frederick II. of Liegnitz, whose friendship for Schwenkfeld never abated, yielded late in life to the pressure of the dominant influences in the Protestant Church, and dismissed the Court Preacher Werner for no other reason than that he continued to teach the same doctrines that the Duke approved when Schwenkfeld was near the Court. But Frederick could not entirely forget his first love, and while he lived no severity was exercised towards the people in his dominions.

After the Duke's death, however, they fared worse. That they, on the one hand, were Protestant and Evangelical, and on the other declined fellowship with the Lutherans, was