Perhaps you will be so good to tell him that it gratified me much.

It is the letter of an honest and an amiable statesman, practical and straightforward.

In the omission of the word "Protestant" he was probably right, and it is equally probable that they would have abused him--maybe even more if he had put it in.

There is only this to say, however: the Ernestine branch of the Saxon family has been, there is no doubt, the real cause of the establishment of Protestantism in Germany, and consequently in great parts of Northern Europe.

This same line became a martyr to that cause, and was deprived of almost all its possessions in consequence of it.
Recently there have been two cases of Catholic marriages, but the main branch has remained, and is, in fact, very sincerely Protestant.