Page:Guide to the Bohemian section and to the Kingdom of Bohemia - 1906.djvu/88

68 The ancient Bohemians were very fond of discussing religious and philosophic questions. It was the disputation about 46 articles, drawn from the writings of John Wycliffe, that set on fire the minds in the University of Prague and led to the subsequent events. This inclination was fostered during the succeeding periods. How many times did the fighting parties meet to wipe out their differences! And what their men were able to perform is shown during the council at Basle in 1433, where John Rokycana required 8 days for his discussion on the Cup, and the English Hussite Petr Payne 2 and 3 days for his argumentation against the hierarchy in the church. Tracts, written during the hussite wars (1419–1468) were innumerable, and there are still hundreds of them existing, which nobody has read and searched trough as yet (Historiographer Palacký), and the invention of the printing art rather enhanced than diminished the productiveness of the authors of the following age. The smallest of the cummunitiescommunities [sic], the Unity of the Brethern, alone has had 3 printing offices, and printed a great deal of books in Germany besides. Peter Chelčický, the spiritual father of the Unity, is said to have written 60, and the great Senior of the Unity Lukas of Prague, 80 tracts and books, and this amidst perils of a fierce persecution, some years spent in prison, and repeated visits to Greece, Italy and France. The working power of John Amos Komenský is simply prodigious. And the works are not merely numerous; they; they are of an intrinsic merit and value. John Blahoslav’s translation of the New Testament is reputed to be the most beautiful rendering, beside the Dutch, of the holy narrative. Peter Chelčický is abreast with the best pulpit orators in the church of all ages, and is one of the most trenchant sociologist. The authors of the Commentaries to the Králice Bible are first-rate theologians, and John Amos Comenius’ works are of worlds renown. The Bohemians proudly call this era their golden age.

The Antireformation put a cruel stop to it, and stunned that spirited nation for centuries.

The books exhibited are specimens of the sad remnant, saved from the wreckage after the storm of persecution, the bohemian „Killing-time“ (1620—1781). The nation crushed in the battle on the White Mountain (1620) lost