Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 29, 2025
For the present all we call say is that the Waldenses in a quiet way were fast becoming a mighty force in the country. But the method of the Taborites was different. If the Kingdom of God was to come at all, it must come, they held, by force, by fire, by the sword, by pillage and by famine. What need to tell here the blood-curdling story of the Hussite Wars?
The greatness of that wise and potent prince was plainly set before our eyes that same day, for on him, as commander-in-chief of the crusade to be sent forth against the Hussite heresy, the Emperor's own sword was solemnly bestowed in the church of Saint Sebald.
"What kindness, what benevolence, and, at the same time, what seriousness and solemnity, even down to this child! How they speak of God, of Jesus, and of heaven! But, am I mistaken? No: not one among them has named either the Holy Virgin or the saints! "Can it be possible!" added he, after long reflection. "Perhaps I am in the family of a Hussite, one of those Calixtans whom I abhor. No, no!
The terrible scenes of the Hussite struggle were re-enacted. In the protracted wars that ensued, it was estimated that the Bohemian population was reduced from about four millions to between seven and eight hundred thousand! The Palatinate was conquered and devastated. The electoral dignity was transferred to the Duke of Bavaria.
The Hussite wars, and the sacrilegious indignity with which her sacred images had been treated in the north, filled her orthodox votaries of the south, of Europe with a consternation and horror like that excited by the Iconoclasts of the eighth century, and were followed by a similar reaction.
We, the nation of Comenius, cannot but accept those principles expressed in the American Declaration of Independence, the principles of Lincoln and of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. For these principles our nation shed its blood in the memorable Hussite wars five hundred years ago.
As time went on, his war of extermination against sinners that is, all who refused to join his banner grew more cruel and unrelenting. Each city that resisted was stormed and ruined, its inhabitants slaughtered, its priests burned. Hussite virtue had degenerated into tyranny of the worst type.
For twenty years the whole land was one boiling welter of confusion; and John Ziska, the famous blind general, took the lead of the Taborite army, and, standing on a wagon, with the banner above him emblazoned with the Hussite Cup, he swept the country from end to end like a devouring prairie fire. It is held now by military experts that Ziska was the greatest military genius of the age.
What then was his surprise to find himself attacked by Eck in a critical reply entitled 'Obelisks. The tone of his remarks was as wounding, coarse, and vindictive as their substance was superficial. They aimed a well-meditated blow, by stigmatising Luther's propositions as Bohemian poison, mere Hussite heresy.
But throughout the Hussite troubles, and in times anterior to them, the right of putting to death by casting from towers and over windows, was claimed and exercised by those in power; nay, and more curious still, it was justified before the world as a constitutional privilege.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking