Page:Guide to the Bohemian section and to the Kingdom of Bohemia - 1906.djvu/92

72 John Amos Comenius, are pressing its words upon the soul of the nation.

The Bible was the dearest treasure in every family, and the most precious bequest a father could leave to his son. Interesting are the passages in the last deeds of dying parents, when referring to the Bible and to their heirs. It remains always an object of wonder, how it was possible, that the Unity of the Brethern undertook to publish an edition of the Bible in six big volumes, when there were so many excellent editions, as that of Melantrich and Severin, already in circúlation. And not merely because of that, but because the same work had three times to be republished within a few years, in a nation numbering then no more than about 5 millions.

This task was accomplished by nine scholars, Coepolla, Helič (a Jewish convert from Posen), Jesenius, Strejc, Mikuláš, Efraim, Capito, Štěpán, and John Blahoslav (The New Testament), and by the support of the mecaenas lord John of Žerotin. It was printed in Králice (Moravia) under the supervision of brother Šolín. The six volumes appeared within the years 1579—1593. The translators abandoned the Vulgata and turned to the original Hebrew and Greek and commented upon the text. The second edition, a smaller volume, without notes, in 1613. The Bibles, used at present by the Protestants of the bohemian tongue, are reprints of this last edition of the Unity. It is a standard of the Bohemian and a monument of the purest refinement of that language, and still a source of study in linguistic regard.

During the persecution (1620-1781) all the Bibles, that were clandestinely colported into Bohemia and Moravia, were reprints printed abroad by the Emigrants. There are editions printed in Halle (Saxony) in 1722, 1748, 1766, and in Berlin 1787. The text of these being somewhat corrected and somewhat spoiled. The Toleration Church (1781—1861) was supplied with Bibles printed chiefly in Hungary, Presburg 1787, Kysek 1807, 1808, and others. A very beautiful and the first again in Bohemia printed edition, in a large volume, is that of Prague 1863, and the New Testament edition, with commentaries, published by the Comenius Society, Prague 1875, a reprint of an edition from 1601 and the Old Testament, published by the rom. cath. firm J. Otto,