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 trampled your fields so many times, destroyed your homes, captured your sons and dragged them into his country and made of them his soldiers, the man who wanted to turn our kingly Prague into ashes. Consider once more that if he were to gain the Bohemian country, he would not deal with it as with a treasure entrusted to his care, but that it would be no more to him than a prey. Is there really no other hope but to invite an enemy into our country for the sake of saving ourselves?”

The harper, expecting the decision of the Union, was not the only one that wept; the whole community wept with him.

The old man was the only one who quietly reflected. Arising at last, and taking the harper by the hand, he led him to his seat.

“To you belongs this place,” he said. “You are better fitted for it than I; you have spoken more wisely to the Brethren.”

But the harper did not accept the position offered him. He begged not to be shamed by being awarded honor that did not belong