arose in a protest against universality, both in Church and State. It is a fact to which sufficient attention has seldom been paid, that among the different articles of accusation raised against John Huss at the Council of Constance was that Huss had instigated among the Czechs national hatred of the Germans. To this accusation Huss answered: “I have affirmed and yet affirm that Bohemians should by right have the chief place in the offices of the Kingdom of Bohemia, even as they that are Frenchborn in the Kingdom of France and the Germans in their own countries, whereby the Bohemian might have the faculty to rule his people, and the Germans bear rule over the Germans.” These words, spoken by the martyr on his trial, have remained the programme of the Czecho-Slovak nation.
In their peculiar position they, an isolated Slav body in the midst of their bitter enemies, came to recognise earlier than any other European nation some of the deepest truths of liberty. “L’homme est un apprenti, la douleur est son maître, et nul ne se connaît tant qu’il n’a pas souffert,” says Alfred de Musset. But then “who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” The Czechs became the forerunners of Europe and suffered the usual fate of the forerunner. The man who walks through the streets of the city before sunrise is called a thief by the awakened sleepers, and the forerunner is called a heretic, and the heretic must be burned. The Czechs paid to the full the penalty of being forerunners, and, having for many years sustained an unequal struggle against orthodox Europe, they suffered their first terrible defeat.
1526 is the date of the next disaster of Bohemia.
