Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/82

 To the whole Unity the blow was tremendous, but to none more than to its bishop. The revulsion of feeling caused by the overthrow of all his hopes was sufficient to strain the mental equilibrium of a man more evenly balanced than Comenius, and it is from this juncture that he commenced to give way to those prophetic tendencies that made him the butt of every academic scoffer in Europe, and contributed more than anything else to neutralise the influence that his life should have had on the immediate future of school-organisation.

Hard work, the most easeful of anodynes, came to his rescue. The bond by which the Brethren had been kept together was loosened, and the Unity was fast dispersing. Comenius’ energies were divided between resisting this tendency and finding places as teachers for those who were leaving Lissa to seek their fortunes elsewhere. The Gymnasium had greatly declined since the days of his Rectorship, and the effort to bring it up to its former pitch of excellence laid an additional burden upon him. It was in literature, however, that he found the most complete refuge from the dull disappointments of life. His solicitude for the purity of modern languages was not confined to the general propositions laid down in the Methodus Novissima. In this year (1649) a German Dictionary from his pen was published, followed by a translation of the eighth book of Lasici’s History of the Bohemian Brethren; a last effort to keep the Unity together and excite the sympathy of Europe in its behalf. In cheerfulness his family history contrasted favourably with his political outlook. He had married again, now for the third time, and in the same year two of his daughters, Dorothea and Elizabeth, were married, the first to his literary collaborator Figulus, and the second to a young Hungarian, Molitor by name. It is to be regretted that we get no glimpse into the interior of the household, as, in the absence of definite information, it is difficult to imagine anything but a some-