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Protestantism in Poland and Bohemia - James Aitken Wylie

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Chapter 7<br />

<strong>Bohemia</strong><br />

Entrance of Reformation<br />

IN resum<strong>in</strong>g the story of <strong>Bohemia</strong> we re-enter a<br />

tragic field. Our rehearsal of its conflicts <strong>and</strong><br />

suffer<strong>in</strong>gs will <strong>in</strong> one sense be a sorrowful, <strong>in</strong><br />

another a truly triumphant task. What we are about<br />

to witness is not the victorious march of a nation<br />

out of bondage, with banners unfurled, <strong>and</strong> s<strong>in</strong>g<strong>in</strong>g<br />

the song of a recovered Gospel; on the contrary, it<br />

is a crowd of sufferers <strong>and</strong> martyrs that is to pass<br />

before us; <strong>and</strong> when the long procession beg<strong>in</strong>s to<br />

draw to an end, we shall have to confess that these<br />

are but a few of that great army of confessors who<br />

<strong>in</strong> this l<strong>and</strong> gave their lives for the truth. Where are<br />

the rest, <strong>and</strong> why are not their deaths here<br />

recorded? They still abide under that darkness with<br />

which their martyrdoms were on purpose covered,<br />

<strong>and</strong> which as yet has been only partially dispelled.<br />

Their names <strong>and</strong> suffer<strong>in</strong>gs are the locked up <strong>in</strong> the<br />

imperial archives of Vienna, <strong>in</strong> the archiepiscopal<br />

135

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