Page:Gregor The story of Bohemia.pdf/224

 gard to religious matters may be judged from the following event: The Taborite priests were invited to Prague to discuss the advisability of using vestments during the ceremony of mass; but when they came they were confronted with seventy Articles, showing them into what errors they had fallen. Some of the more important charges were that they wanted to abolish all holidays except Sunday; that they disbelieved in purgatory and the intercession of saints; that they served mass without any ceremonial and in the vernacular; that they abolished fasts; that they held all church ornaments, such as pictures and statuary, as sinful; and finally, one of the most heinous of heresies was, that some claimed that, in the sacrament of the communion, Christ was present only spiritually, not corporally.

The more moderate of the Taborite priests denied most of these charges; but quite a number held them, and acknowledged it openly. Among these, the most prominent was a young priest from Moravia named John Houska. Houska taught that the bread and wine taken at communion remained unchanged, and that it was sinful to worship these symbols as though they were the real body and blood of Christ. This doctrine spread so rapidly that the Taborite priests became alarmed, and sent Jacobek and Pribram to Prague for counsel how to deal with this new heresy. In the meantime the discussions concerning these points became so bitter that Houska, with three hundred followers, was driven from the camp; but thinking better of it, the priests recalled him, determined, if possible, to induce him to abjure some of his errors. Not being willing to give up as much as they desired,