Excerpt from Short History of the Church in the United States 1. Europe in the Sixteenth Century was in convulsion. The Reformation had already stirred England to its centre by the fearless labors of Wyclif, while Huss of Bohemia had uttered a cry of warning which was heard throughout the Continent and awakened fear in Rome. These reformatory movements reacted on the political life of all the central nations. Not a throne was safe where the new religious revolt was in full force. The entire sixteenth century was a period of universal disturbance. The progress of reform provoked violent hostility, and every land was divided into factions. There were three general grades of sentiment. One class, receiving its inspiration from Rome, wished to continue the old order, with the Pope as practical sovereign. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art techlogy to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.