Page:Lectures on The Historians of Bohemia by Count Lutzow (1905).djvu/116

 to use their victory for the purpose of material gain. Was their conduct nobler and more Christian?

‘As to the Hussites they never, during their prolonged and heroic struggle, ceased to consider it and to term it a fight for the liberty of God’s word. Was this the consequence of illusion or arrogance? I have already mentioned that the so-called worldruling authority of the mediaeval Church had at that time almost arrived at that stage, that it considered the teaching both of holy writ and of reason as unnecessary and superfluous, in view of the Holy Ghost which controlled the Church. I have also noticed that in spite of the undeniable merit of most of the ecclesiastical regulations, an equally undeniable corruption prevailed among all ranks of the hierarchy. On its path to ecclesiastical omnipotence the hierarchic system of the Middle Ages first encountered resistance on the part of the Hussites, who cried “Stop.” They forced the hierarchy to recognize the existence of something higher without it and above it, and also to learn to respect the right of men to form their own opinions and to give utterance to them. This something higher, which was now generally recognized, was that which the Hussites termed “the word of God,” namely the holy scripture and the apostolic spirit by which it is inspired. I do not wish to infer that the Church was by this recognition diverted from its original path; but the events of the Hussite war certainly somewhat restored it to its consciousness, and it henceforth avoided diverting yet further from holy writ, and continuing further on its downward path. The absolute authority of the Church in spiritual matters indeed ceased, but not the Christian character of its mission.’