Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/578

 502 THE HUSSITES. the oath and the sword — nothing would justify the taking of hu- man Ufe, and consequently they were non-resistants. Since the time of Constantine and Silvester the Koman Church had gone astray in the pursuit of wealth and worldly power. The sacra- ments were worthless in polluted hands. Priests might hear con- fessions and impose penances, but they could not absolve ; they could only announce the forgiveness of God. Purgatory was a myth invented by cunning priests. As for the mystery of the Eucharist, they prudently adopted the formula of Peter Chelcicky, which eluded the difficulty by affirming that the behever receives the body and blood of Christ, without pretending to explain or daring to discuss the matter. They ridiculed the superstition of the Calixtins, which exaggerated in the absurdest fashion the sanc- tity of the Eucharist, which carried the sacrament through the streets for adoration, and which held that he whose eye chanced to fall on it was safe from evil happening for that day ; and they sometimes incurred martyrdom by publicly reproving the fanatic zeal which regarded the Eucharist as the hoUest of idols. On this basis was founded the brotherhood of love and charity, of patient endurance and meekness, which represented more nearly the Christian ideal than anything the world had seen for thirteen centuries. With extreme simphcity of life there was no exagger- ation of asceticism. Heaven was not to be stormed by mortifica- tion of the flesh, but was to be won by the sedulous discharge of the duties imposed on man by his Creator, in humble obedience to the divine will, and in pious rehance on Christ. Such was the "Unitas Fratrum"— the Bohemian or Moravian Brotherhood— and that a society thus defenceless and unresisting should endure the savage vicissitudes of that transitional period, and maintain itself through four hundred years to the present time, shows that force is not necessarily the last word in human affairs, and that average human nature is capable of a- higher moral development than it has been permitted to reach under prevaihng influences, secular and spiritual."^ Schweinitz, Hist, of Unitas Fratrum, pp. 111-12, 159, 204-5.— Von Zezschwitz, Real-Encyklop.n. 652-3.— Hist. Persecutionum pp. 58-60, 90.— Palacky, Die Be- ziehungen der Waldenser, pp. 32-33.— Camerarii Hist. Frat. Orthod. pp. 59-66.—
 * Goll, Quellen u. Untersuchimgen, 1. 10, 32-33, 92, 99 ; 11. 72, 87-88, 94.-De