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 their present state of despair combined with superstitious expectation, the struggling Protestant communities would swallow almost any prophetic farrago that he chose to deliver to them. Count Rakoczy was to overthrow the house of Hapsburg, and Comenius was to anoint him king at Pressburg. In combination with Sweden, the Count was then to make Protestantism the faith of Europe. In this operation the Turks, of all people in the world, were to assist him, and, by the translation of the Bible into Turkish, for which the Countess Susanna was to supply the funds, were to be made cognisant of the exact grounds of dispute between the Reformed and the Catholic Church.

The transparency of Drabik’s motives was only equalled by his brazen-facedness. In ignorance of the events that were taking place in the Rakoczy family, he continued to receive and to impart revelations concerning the future actions of Sigismund Rakoczy for months after his death. The shout of laughter that the scoffers raised at this unfortunate mistake would have been sufficient to induce most prophets to retire from business, but Drabik, with the greatest calmness, created George Rakoczy his brother’s prophetic heir, and had the impudence to announce repeatedly that in a few weeks so he was informed from heaven-he would be summoned to Saros-Patak, and taken on by the Rakoczys as a kind of family seer; a hint that produced no effect of the kind intended.

Comenius was as yet indisposed to give these revelations full credence, but he thought them well worth considering, and, as events of a peculiarly startling character were foretold for the year 1653, he remained in Hungary, thinking that it might be as well to encounter a social upheaval under the protection of the powerful Rakoczy family. Needless to say, nothing remarkable occurred at the prescribed date, and, as the Church in Lissa needed his presence urgently, he finally (1654) made up his mind to leave Saros-Patak. The non-fulfilment of the prophecies had, strange to say, not diminished his interest in Drabik, whose hold upon him grew firmer daily.