In the name of “Progress” not a few demand that the religious question should be left severely alone. We cannot return to the Middle Ages they say. This is a very foggy and unprogressive outlook. Nowhere does the religious question nowadays imply the mere adoption of old ecclesiastical forms. Protestantism and Catholicism are alike in a state of crisis. If we are to bridge the abyss of the Hapsburg Counter-Reformation and to establish new links with our national Reformation, we must continue its tradition in harmony with the spiritual needs of our time. If it be said that the present generation of Czechs no longer believe as Hus believed, and that Hus stood nearer to Rome than we stand, the answer is that though we no longer believe as Hus believed, he and his disciples are models of moral resolution, steadfastness and religious uprightness. Hus began the fight against the worldliness of the Church and the people followed him. His fight for higher morality and lofty piety, sealed by the sacrifice of his life, was a fight against the moral decadence of the Church, the priesthood and the Papacy. When, in the name of the Cross, Rome declared a European war against us, Žižka, sword in hand, upheld victoriously the living principles Hus had proclaimed. Even Chelčický recognized that the struggle against the temporal rule of the Priesthood necessarily involved hostility to the State which the Church was supporting, that is to say, simultaneous antagonism to the political and the ecclesiastical power; and, with a truly Žižka-like vigour, he took up the fight for the humane ideal against ecclesiastical and political violence. If he overshot the mark, his great idea survived him. Comenius, the last Bishop of the Bohemian Brotherhood which Chelčický founded, taught us that education and careful upbringing are indispensable to any thoroughgoing religious and moral reform. The examples of Hus and Žižka show that life is worthless without truthfulness and unless it be guided by conviction. Chelčický and the Brotherhood show that a system of life based on ecclesiastical and political force is evil. Comenius pointed the way to an exalted, all-embracing wisdom and humane sympathy. In the spirit of these masters we must go forward and hand on their torch to future generations. What names has the Hapsburg Counter-Reformation to compare with these four—Hus, Žižka, Chelčický, Comenius—names dear to our whole people and respected throughout the world? Over against a great idea it can set nought but naked force.
The relationship of religion to political and practical life
