John Huss and the Hussite Wars - James Aitken Wylie

cease. To the party of the Calixtines belonged the
chief magnates, and most of the great cities, which
threw the preponderance of opinion on the side of
the Compactata. Into this scale was thrown also the
influence of Rochyzana, the pastor of the
Calixtines. "He was tempted with the hope of a
bishopric," says Comenius, and used his influence
both at Basle and Prague to further conciliation on
terms more advantageous to Rome than honorable
to the Bohemians. "In this manner," says
Comenius, "they receded from the footsteps of
Huss and returned to the camp of Antichrist."
In judging of the conduct of the Bohemians at
this crisis of their affairs, we are to bear in mind
that the events narrated took place in the fifteenth
century; that the points of difference between the
two Churches, so perfectly irreconcilable, had not
yet been so dearly and sharply defined as they
came to be by the great controversies of the century
that followed. But the Bohemians in accepting this
settlement stepped down from a position of
unexampled grandeur. Their campaigns are
amongst the most heroic and brilliant of the wars of
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