VISION, IN SACRED AND OTHER HISTORY. 



97 



from vaster hosts of relentless enemies, who were bent on slaying the 

 Bohemians at large as " a sacrilegious and accursed nation." When 

 those faithful servants of God, John Huss and Jerome of Prague, 

 had been imprisoned by the Council of Constance, and, in spite of 

 the German Emperor's promise of a safe return home, had been 

 burnt alive for the truths that they taught, Ziska, who was then 

 chamberlain to King Wenceslaus of Bohemia, was found by his master 

 brooding over the cruelt^^ done to these noble men and the affront 

 to his nation, when the king said to him in jest, " If you are able to 

 call the Emperor to account, you have my permission." In earnest, 

 Ziska replied, "Give me, Sire, that permission in writing" ; and it 

 was done. Then within a few weeks came the news that the fresh 

 Pope who had been elected by the Council, had proclaimed a crusade 

 against the Bohemians in the terms above given ; and Ziska, to the 

 indignant citizens of Prague, produced the royal permission. On 

 the Michaelmas following, from numbers of the towns and villages 

 round about, many thousands gathered to a plain near Prague, and 

 partook of the Lord's supper in both kinds, as a protest against the 

 Papal withholding of the cup from the laity ; and they agreed to 

 reassemble on the Martinmas following. But on the way to the 

 second meeting they heard that the Emperor's cavalry were lying in 

 wait for them ; so they sent back for soldiers to protect them : and 

 a battle ensued in which the imperial troops were routed. Ziska 

 then, signing himself " Ziska of the Chalice," issued a manifesto ia 

 which he urged his countrymen to oppose the Anti-Christ with arms^ 

 relying upon God, who had already encouraged them with a victory 

 he drove from the walls of Prague an army of persecutors 100,000 

 strong, and in sixteen pitched battles against the imperial forces and 

 crusaders won the victory every time. I believe that Ziska heard 

 God's voice encouraging him to deliver his country, just as much as 

 Joan of Arc did. 



Mr. Sidney Collett said that the line of thought running 

 through the whole paper, viz. : that in becoming the mother of our 

 Lord, Mary was performing a great act of sacrifice, is both fanciful 

 and highly imaginative, and is quite contrary to everything we read 

 in the inspired account, and indeed is opposed to Mary's own ex- 

 pressed views on the subject as recorded in Luke i, 46 to 55, which 

 shows that she regarded it, not in any sense as a sacrifice, but as the 

 highest possible honour, bringing with it the greatest possible joy. 



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