Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/85

him, so that his uncle, Charles, was gladly welcomed as a deliverance to the country, and Sigismond was formally deposed in 1601.

It should be noticed that of all the children of the illustrious Gustavus Vasa, Charles IX. was by far the best, and it was the son of this king who became the brightest light in Swedish history, probably everything considered, the greatest figure in all modern royalty, and one of the most ideal heroes who ever lived, Gustavus Adolphus the Great.

To recount the characteristics of this celebrated champion of the Protestant cause would be but to repeat again the eulogies for the founder of the house, his grandfather. The nobility and genius of Gustavus Adolphus are too well known to need much comment here. It will be sufficient to quote a few extracts from the many works devoted to his life and achievements.

He ascended to the throne in his seventeenth year and soon gave proof of his extraordinary abilities. The military talents of Gustavus Adolphus were of the highest order, but they were surpassed by his admirable qualities as a man and his virtues as a ruler.^[1] Gustavus was, says Schiller, incontestably the first commander of his century and the bravest soldier in the army which he created. His eye watched over the morals of the soldiers as strictly as over their bravery. In everything their lawgiver was also their example. In the intoxication of his fortune he was still a man and a Christian, and in his devotion still a hero and a king.

Such is the universal testimony of both contemporaries and historians in admiration of the sublime personality of Gustavus Adolphus. the Lion of the North, who like a brilliant comet flashed for a brief time over European affairs, until his course was terminated all too soon while defending the faith for which he gave his life.

Cut off in his thirty-eighth year, when most men are only beginning to assume the full responsibilities for which they are fitted, we do not know what might have been the limit to the manifold acts of benefit and righteousness that would have been conferred by Sweden's greatest king. Let us pause in passing to consider the mysteries of fate that heaped upon this man, sandwiched in between the maniacs and weaklings of his family, all the gifts of mind and heart ever allotted to mortals. If great men are divine, then heredity is, for Gustavus Adolphus is but a perfect repetition of his illustrious grandfather.

After the death of the great king, Sweden passed into the hands of a regency for Christina, his only child. Her sprightly wit and spirit, her energy and taste for learning, all gave her countrymen the greatest hope for a brilliant future for their beloved little queen 'who astonished her guardians by the vigor of her understanding.' In 1614 on her eighteenth birthday, she assumed supreme power and for some

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1. Lippincott's 'Biog. Dict.'