98
The Great Controversy 1888
woods and caves, they still assembled to read God’s Word and unite in
his worship.
Through messengers secretly sent out into different countries, they
learned that here and there were isolated confessors of the truth—
a few in this city and a few in that, the object, like themselves, of
persecution; and that amid the mountains of the Alps was an ancient
church, resting on the foundations of Scripture. This intelligence was
received with great joy, and a correspondence was opened with the
Waldensian Christians.
Steadfast to the gospel, the Bohemians waited through the night of
their persecution, in the darkest hour still turning their eyes toward the
horizon like men who watch for the morning. “Their lot was cast in
evil days, but they remembered the words first uttered by Huss, and
repeated by Jerome, that a century must revolve before the day should
break. These were to the Hussites what the words of Joseph were to
the tribes in the house of bondage: ‘I die, and God will surely visit
you, and bring you out.’” About the year 1470 persecution ceased,
and there followed a period of comparative prosperity. When “the end
of the century arrived, it found two hundred churches of the ‘United
Brethren’ in Bohemia and Moravia. So goodly was the remnant which,
escaping the destructive fury of fire and sword, was permitted to see
the dawning of that day which Huss had foretold.”
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