Page:Gregor The story of Bohemia.pdf/202

 At this time the ruling spirit among the people of Prague was the priest John Zelivsky, who has already been spoken of in connection with the storm in the city hall of New Town. Being a man of great eloquence and burning zeal for his nation’s welfare, the proclamation of the crusade against his country roused his indignation to the highest pitch, and he at once began to hurl the thunderbolts of his wrath both against the Pope and the emperor. Borrowing his figures of speech from Revelation, he called Sigmund “the sevenheaded dragon” that had come into the world to destroy the new-born child—the truth lately discovered—and for which all the faithful were to fight, and if needs be die, since through it salvation would come to the world. “He said their mother, the Church, had not merely become a stepmother, but a monster that devoured her own offspring. With bloody hands she had raised the cross, that symbol of peace and grace, using it as a standard under which bloodthirsty hordes were to rally to the destruction of faithful believers in Christ.” Such words uttered by a beloved preacher, whose own sincerity no one could have called into question, roused the people to a frenzy of enthusiasm, so that they were not only willing to fight, but eager to lay down their lives for their country and their religion.

The Royalists, and especially the Germans, became alarmed, and prepared to leave the city, thinking they could return as soon as Sigmund arrived; for they had no doubts as to his ability to subdue the heretics. They were not at all hindered in this exodus, so that