The great length of the war gradually revealed its very hopelessness and
uselessness, creating a general desire for rest and peace, transforming
and weakening the religious movements out of which the war had arisen.
The principle of private judgment, coming from the Reformation, had had
time to develop and undermine the ideas of temporal rights and duties
common to both parties, while many ideas first conceived by the
Reformation but suppressed at the time, had at last commenced to grow
through the long-continued tribulations.
Another cause of the war was the inherent incompatibility of religious
views among the people. Religious discord exists to-day, but it is not
decided by bloody contests, because of breadth of religious insight,
general indifference, and increasing skepticism. The convictions of the
people of the seventeenth century, as to the truth of their own opinions
and the errors of their opponents, were of such an absolute character as
can not be found nowadays even among people with the most rigid beliefs.
They did not know then that it was possible to live together and yet
have the most varied and contradictory religious convictions. To suppose
that these people were stupid is an error. The chances are that they
were less stupid than the people are to-day. How many, at the present
time, can look at their country, its ideals, ideas, and customs justly
and without prejudice? Naturally very few. But to place ourselves
outside of not only our country but our generation is much more
difficult. How could we then expect the people of the seventeenth
century to do this?