Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/102

 school-boys in Europe, and beyond the reach of any casual conflagration.

A letter of Pell’s, dated July 17th, shows that Comenius’ friends in England were kept well informed as to the state of his affairs. “Five days ago,” writes Pell, “I received a letter dated Dantzig, June 17th, containing a letter from Mr. Comenius, dated 22nd of May, wherein he describes the sad estate of those Protestants that escaped from Lesna, where he, for his own part, besides his writings, lost in money, books, and household stuff, above 3000 reichs-dalers (about £700 sterling). He had with incredible labour and no small journeys gotten the favour of some liberal persons, and hoped perhaps to leave his children £200 apiece, which among so many poor exiles would have seemed great riches. I hear he is sixty-five years old, and, it seems, hath nothing left but the clothes on his back. Those papers which have been found in the ashes and rubbish of Lesna are little worth in comparison of those which he accounts irrevocably lost I should have been willing to read over his refutations of the Copernicans and Cartesians, but with that prejudice that I do not believe him to be a competent judge of all the differences between them and other writers. And therefore of all his papers, there is none for whose loss I am less sorry, though he say of them, ‘Me valde dolet, siquidem in iis multum posueram operæ et diligentiæ.’

“I have caused his letter to be fairly written out and have sent it to the divines (pastors and professors) of Zurich, who esteem him and have introduced his Janua into their higher school some years ago. I make no question but they will do something for him.”

The terrible calamity that had befallen the Protestant community at Lissa excited the sympathy of non-Catholics throughout Europe. On every side collections were made