Huss and Jerome
97
The rout was complete, and again an immense booty fell into the hands
of the victors.
Thus the second time a vast army, sent forth by the most powerful
nations of Europe, a host of brave, warlike men, trained and equipped
for battle, fled without a blow before the defenders of a small and
hitherto feeble nation. Here was a manifestation of divine power. The
invaders were smitten with a supernatural terror. He who overthrew
the hosts of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, who put to flight the armies of
Midian before Gideon and his three hundred, who in one night laid
low the forces of the proud Assyrian, had again stretched out His
hand to wither the power of the oppressor. “There were they in great
fear, where no fear was: for God hath scattered the bones of him that
encampeth against thee: thou hast put them to shame, because God
hath despised them.”
Psalm 53:5
.
[118]
The papal leaders, despairing of conquering by force, at last re-
sorted to diplomacy. A compromise was entered into, that while
professing to grant to the Bohemians freedom of conscience, really
betrayed them into the power of Rome. The Bohemians had specified
four points as the condition of peace with Rome: the free preaching of
the Bible; 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;
the exclusion of the clergy from all secular offices and authority; and,
in cases of crime, the jurisdiction of the civil courts over clergy and
laity alike. The papal authorities at last “agreed that the four articles
of the Hussites should be accepted, but that the right of explaining
them, that is, of determining their precise import, should belong to the
council—in other words, to the pope and the emperor.”—Wylie, b. 3,
ch. 18. On this basis a treaty was entered into, and Rome gained by
dissimulation and fraud what she had failed to gain by conflict; for,
placing her own interpretation upon the Hussite articles, as upon the
Bible, she could pervert their meaning to suit her own purposes.
A large class in Bohemia, seeing that it betrayed their liberties,
could not consent to the compact. Dissensions and divisions arose,
leading to strife and bloodshed among themselves. In this strife the
noble Procopius fell, and the liberties of Bohemia perished.
Sigismund, the betrayer of Huss and Jerome, now became king
of Bohemia, and regardless of his oath to support the rights of the
Bohemians, he proceeded to establish popery. But he had gained little