Page:Glimpses of Bohemia by MacDonald (1882).pdf/16

 north-west and in the south German is generally spoken, but in many districts you will have difficulty in finding anyone who can understand that language. The towns are, however, all bilingual.

Bohemia (the province), with an area about three-fourths of that of Scotland, has a population of over 5,000,000, while Moravia and Silesia, with an area of one-third of Scotland, have a population of 2,500,000.

The Bohemians are said to have settled in Bohemia in the fifth century, but their authentic history begins in the ninth century, when they embraced Christianity under the preaching of Cyril and Methodius, priests of the Greek Church, and true evangelists. Although Methodius was afterwards recognised by the Roman Pontiff as Archbishop of Moravia, the Church which he and his brother founded was never completely Romanised. Even in Methodius’s own life the struggle with Rome commenced, and it was with difficulty that he maintained the right of the people to have worship conducted in the vernacular tongue; but it was only after centuries, and by the sword, that the use of Latin was ultimately enforced on the Bohemian Church.

The native line of kings became extinct early in the fourteenth century, and about the date of Bannockburn the Bohemian Crown was given to a German, John of Luxemberg, the blind king of Bohemia, who was killed at Cressy by Edward the Black Prince, and whose crest, the three ostrich feathers, has since been worn by our Princes of Wales. John’s son, Charles I. of Bohemia, afterwards fourth Emperor of Germany of that name, founded the University of Prague, drew many learned and excellent men to the country, including what we would call revival preachers, and at his death left Bohemia in a state of prosperity, and in the vanguard of European civilisation and culture.

Charles’s daughter Anne married Richard II. of England. Through the connection thus established, it came about that the writings of Wycliffe went to Bohemia, and that Jerome of Prague was for a time a student at Oxford. And in a very few years, by the preaching and martyrdom of Huss, a reformation of religion spread over Bohemia, the