which most of them willingly did. Still there were quite a number among those claiming the privilege of the Patent that refused to join either sect, calling themselves Adamites. The history of those times charges them with gross errors in faith and many wicked practices. Even if these charges be true, the methods that they were dealt with sadly belie the vaunted liberalism of Joseph II. The adults were transported to Hungary and Transylvania, and their children placed in Catholic families to be brought up. A law was also passed that any one publicly professing to be a Deist—thus the authorities called this sect—should receive twelve blows with a club.
The number of Protestants rapidly increased, so that, even during the reign of Joseph II, there were forty-eight churches, having a membership of 45,000 souls; thirty-six of these were of the Calvinistic, and twelve of the Augsburg Confession. Each of these sects was granted a superintendent, who was directly responsible to the crown.
As the Protestant Churches were thus placed directly under the control of the government, so Joseph determined that the Church in general should be subordinate to the State. To this end, he ordered that no Papal bull should be announced in any of his dominions, unless it had first been submitted for approval to the civil authorities. Henceforth monasteries were not to be subject to any power non-resident in the dominions of Austria. Later, Joseph ordered the abolition of all convents that he deemed unnecessary, leaving only those that devoted themselves to the education of youth or to the care of the sick. From 1782 to 1788, fifty-eight of these institutions were either
