Page:Guide to the Bohemian section and to the Kingdom of Bohemia - 1906.djvu/87



t was a scottish promineent divine, who thus characterized Bohemia, and she is indeed most deservedly entitled to it. The Law of God and the Cup were her ideals for two hundred years, the most glorious epoch of her history (1415–1620), and her loyalty to them placed her in the van of the Reformation and made her the cradle of the most beautiful of chrisitan churches, the Unity of the Brethern, and is shedding still a somber lustre on the catastrophe, that befell her. Her tragic sin, says a historian, is her being too small againts the formidable powers, that opposed her, and finally crushed her.

„The Cup“, says E. Denis in his marvellous work Fin de l'independence bohême, „was the symbol of the mercenaries driven from the Temple, the Saviour reinstalled upon his throne, the liberty of God's truth regained, paradise re-opened, crimes eradicated, commonwealth purified, enemies defeated, victory of the national tongue achieved, and all these mingled together with the firm resolve not to forsake the Cup, though it be but for the sake of sufferings undergone for it. This is the clew to the Hussite reformation in Bohemia. And the source of inspiration and energy displayed in those unparalleled struggles, the torch lighting on the way towards that ideal goal, was the Book, which the meanest hussite woman knew better than any roman priest (Pius II.).