As he advanced in
life he became more and more interested in the Protestant faith. He
received a clergyman of the reformed religion as his chaplain and
private secretary, and partook of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper,
from his hands, in both kinds. Even while remaining in the Spanish court
he entered into a correspondence with several of the most influential
advocates of the Protestant faith. Returning to Austria from Spain, he
attended public worship in the chapels of the Protestants, and communed
with them in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. When some of his
friends warned him that by pursuing such a course he could never hope to
obtain the imperial crown of Germany, he replied:
"I will sacrifice all worldly interests for the sake of my salvation."
His father, the Emperor Ferdinand, was so much displeased with his son's
advocacy of the Protestant faith, that after many angry remonstrances he
threatened to disinherit him if he did not renounce all connection with
the reformers. But Maximilian, true to his conscience, would not allow
the apprehension of the loss of a crown to induce him to swerve from his
faith. Fully expecting to be thus cast off and banished from the
kingdom, he wrote to the Protestant elector Palatine:
"I have so deeply offended my father by maintaining a Lutheran preacher
in my service, that I am apprehensive of being expelled as a fugitive,
and hope to find an asylum in your court.
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