Page:John Huss, his life, teachings and death, after five hundred years.pdf/351

 the streets were so laid out that an army penetrating through the walls could not see from one end of them to the other. Founded in 1419, the city still exists and has a museum containing many objects of interest dating from the Hussite wars and fronted by a bronze statue of Ziska, the sturdy, one-eyed Taborite soldier. The city has a small Protestant church, recently built, which reminds the visitor that the whole region round about, now Catholic, once resounded to the Hussite hymns and witnessed the simple ceremonies of their Puritan faith. The Taborites were the rigorous party, going even to a fanatical extreme. The Calixtines, more conservative and finally contenting themselves with the use of the сир and the free use of the Scriptures, were largely confined to the city of Prague.

Early in 1417, the university, taking note of this dissension, and led by Jacobellus of Mies, Christian of Prachaticz and John of Reinstein, all friends of Huss, condemned the party of the Hussites who were denying purgatory, prayers for the dead, who banished images from the church, abandoned the use of candles, incense, the ringing of bells and consecrated baptismal water, who refused judicial oaths, demanded the mass in the vulgar tongue, and that only such ceremonies be practised as were distinctly set forth in the New Testament. These errors and others were set forth in twenty-three articles issued by a council of the masters and clergy of Prague a year and a half later. The term Taborites is not used, although that party was meant.

The theological faculty further formulated the Hussite doctrine in four articles which demanded free preaching of the Gospel, the administration of both elements in the Lord’s Supper, the deprivation of clergymen possessed of riches and