He
forbade any license to preach or academical degree, or professorship in
the universities from being conferred upon any one who did not sign the
formulary of the Catholic faith. He ordered a new catechism to be drawn
up for universal use in the schools, that there should be no more
Protestant education of children; he allowed no town to choose any
officer without his approbation, and he refused to ratify any choice
which did not fall upon a Catholic. No person was to be admitted to the
rights of burghership, until he had taken an oath of submission to the
Catholic priesthood. These high-handed measures led to the outbreak of a
few insurrections, which the emperor crushed with iron rigor. In the
course of a few years, by the vigorous and unrelenting prosecution of
these measures, Rhodolph gave the Catholics the ascendency in all his
realms.
While the Catholics were all united, the Protestants were shamefully
divided upon the most trivial points of discipline, or upon abstruse
questions in philosophy above the reach of mortal minds. It was as true
then, as in the days of our Saviour, that "the children of this world
are wiser in their generation than the children of light.
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