districts the priests who came to demand their tithes were dismissed without their “fat ducks and geese,” there was a general outcry against the new heresy.  The Romish party knew their strength at the Court of Vienna.  At the instigation of the Papal legate Cajetan, Louis II. issued the terrible edict of 1523, which ran as follows:  “All Lutherans, and those who favour them, as well as all adherents to their sect, shall have their property confiscated and themselves be punished with death as heretics and foes of the most holy Virgin Mary.”

While the monks were stirring up their partisans to have the Lutherans put to death, a national misfortune happened which saved Protestantism, at least in Transylvania.  Soliman the Magnificent set out from Constantinople in the spring of 1526 with a mighty host, which came nearer and nearer to Hungary like the “wasting levin.”  King Louis lost his army and his life at the battle of Mohacks, leaving the Turks to pursue their way into the heart of the country, slaughtering upwards of 200,000 of its inhabitants.  To this calamity, as we all know, succeeded an internal civil war, resulting from the rival claims of John Zapolya and the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria for the crown of Hungary.  Transylvania took advantage of this critical time to achieve her independence under Zapolya, consenting to pay tribute to the Porte on condition of receiving assistance against the tyranny of Austria.  Thus it came about that the infidel Turks helped to preserve the Reformation in this part of Europe:  they became the defenders of Protestant Transylvania against the tyranny of Roman Catholic Austria.  “Sell what thou hast and depart into Transylvania, where thou wilt have liberty to profess the truth,” were the words spoken by King Ferdinand himself to Stephen Szantai, a zealous preacher of the gospel in Upper Hungary, whom he desired to defend.

It is said that the first printing-press set up in Hungary was the gift of Count Nadasdy to Matthias Devay, who was devoted to the education of youth; and the first work that was issued from the press was a book for children, teaching the rudiments of the gospel in the language of the country.  The same Protestant nobleman aided the publication in 1541 of an edition of the New Testament in the Magyar tongue.  “It is a remarkable fact,” says Mr Patterson,[16] “connected with the history of Protestantism, that all its converts were made within the pale of Latin Christianity.  In the nationalities of Hungary there belonged to Latin Christianity the Magyars, the Slovacks, and the Germans.”

In Transylvania the progress of Protestantism was secured.  In 1553 the Diet declared in favour of the Reformation by a majority of votes, and while the province was governed by Petrovich, during the minority of Zapolya’s infant son, he freed the whole of Transylvania from the jurisdiction of the Roman hierarchy.

When the Turks were finally expelled from Hungary by the second battle of Mohacks in 1686, Protestantism had grown strong enough in Transylvania to extract from the house of Hapsburg the celebrated Diploma Leopoldium (their Magna Charta), which secured to them religious liberty once and for ever.