Protestantism in Poland and Bohemia - James Aitken Wylie

Chapter 9
An Army of Martyrs
JOACHIM ANDREAS SCHLIK, Count of
Passau, and chief justice under Frederick, comes
first in the glorious host that is to march past us. He
was descended of an ancient and illustrious family.
A man of magnanimous spirit, and excellent piety,
he united an admirable modesty with great business
capacity. When he heard his sentence, giving his
body to be quartered, and his limbs to be exposed
at a cross-road, he said, "The loss of a sepulchre is
a small matter." On hearing the gun in the morning
fired to announce the executions, "This," said he,
"is the signal; let me go first."
He walked to the scaffold, dressed in a robe of
black silk, holding a prayer-book in his hands, and
attended by four German clergymen.[1] He
mounted the scaffold, and then marking the great
brightness of the sun, he broke out, "Christ, thou
Sun of righteousness, grant that through the
darkness of death I may pass into the eternal light."
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