Page:Glimpses of Bohemia by MacDonald (1882).pdf/46

 all to the right of the pulpit, the men to the left, the red head-dresses and white collars of the former contrasting more vividly with the dark costumes of the latter when thus arranged en masse. The children occupied the gallery, boys and girls being separated by the organ. The large number of young men present was remarkable. All listened most attentively to the sermon, which was first preached in Czech, and then re-preached in English for the benefit of the strangers, the congregation patiently waiting through the delivery of the English, although so many of them were standing. Pastor Cisar, in his welcome to the delegates, spoke of them as the first of those who did not, like the priest and the Levite, pass by, but like the Samaritan, helped the poor maltreated and oppressed Protestants of Bohemia. In the course of his sermon, he compared with much ingenuity the trials of Bohemia during the anti-reformation times to the plagues of Egypt, the Jesuits who had specially endeavoured to destroy the evangelical literature of the old Unitas Fratrum being set down as the devouring locusts. God had not, he said, forgotten Bohemia in 1621, but Bohemia turned away from God, who allowed her own sons to shed each other’s blood on pretext of defending the faith. The Bohemians had brought misfortune on themselves by electing an inexperienced German youth as king. The exiled Bohemians, who fled after the defeat of 1621, had become blessings to the countries where they found refuge, but they had lost their language, and all recollection of their connection with the Fatherland; and their descendants could now only be reached by the general appeal for aid to the Churches who had profited so much from their labours, and who were the spiritual offspring of the Bohemian Sion. The Emperor Joseph II., Pastor Cisar compared to Cyrus in a most interesting manner. The Edict of Toleration called the Protestant Church into life again, but gave it no sustaining power. Protestants were still, he said, looked upon by the authorities as a nuisance—a necessary evil.

On Tuesday, 20th inst., the church was crowded to overflowing by eight o’clock in the morning. After sermon by Senior Nespor, the delegates were introduced, each making a short speech, Mr. Cisar showing wonder-