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Two Heroes Face Death
71
Betrayed by Diplomacy
The papal leaders at last resorted to diplomacy. A compromise
was entered into that betrayed the Bohemians into the power of
Rome. The Bohemians had specified four points as the condition of
peace with Rome: (1) the free preaching of the Bible; (2) the right of
the whole church to both the bread and the wine in the communion
and the use of the mother tongue in divine worship; (3) the exclusion
of the clergy from all secular offices and authority; and, (4) in cases
of crime, the jurisdiction of the civil courts over clergy and laity
alike. The papal authorities agreed that the four articles should be
accepted, “but that the right of explaining them ... should belong to
the council—in other words, to the pope and the emperor.
Rome
gained by dissimulation and fraud what she had failed to gain by
conflict. Placing her own interpretation upon the Hussite articles, as
upon the Bible, she could pervert their meaning to suit her purposes.
A large class in Bohemia, seeing that it betrayed their liberties,
could not consent to the compact. Dissensions arose, leading to
strife among themselves. The noble Procopius fell, and the liberties
of Bohemia perished.
[75]
Again foreign armies invaded Bohemia, and those who remained
faithful to the gospel were subjected to a bloody persecution. Yet
their firmness was unshaken. Forced to find refuge in caves, they still
assembled to read God’s Word and unite in His worship. Through
messengers secretly sent to different countries they learned “that
amid the mountains of the Alps was an ancient church, resting on the
foundations of Scripture, and protesting against the idolatrous cor-
ruptions of Rome.
With great joy, 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.
[76]
20
Wylie, bk. 3, ch. 18.
21
Wylie, bk. 3, ch. 19.