Page:The future of Bohemia by Seton-Watson (1915).pdf/13

 Just as at a later date Knox could say of the first martyr of the Scottish Reformation, “The reek of Maister Patrick Hamilton has infected all it blew upon,” so it is worth noting that the teaching of Hus, which at the time found its fiercest opponents among the Germans, none the less a century later inspired the great religious movement which revivified Germany. Time brings its revenges, and to-day the English, who burnt the Maid of France, and the Scots, who fought for her, unite in honouring her statue at Rouen. May we not, also at the anniversary of Waterloo, express the hope that ere long, as the result of a just and lasting settlement, the secular hates of German and Czech may be merged in a new enthusiasm for the cause of common civilization?

I have written as an ardent and convinced admirer of Hus the reformer as well as Hus the patriot. But I wish to make it clear that in admiring that side of him, I have not even the remotest wish to offend the Catholic sentiments of the majority of his countrymen, of to-day. They have shown only too clearly that those who differ from him on religious matters can still revere him as a great national hero.

At a time when in England increased interest is being shown in the Russian Orthodox Church, it may be well to refer to the curious fact that in Russia Hus is very widely regarded as “Pravoslav” or Orthodox in his views and aims. The accuracy of this view has been